"Gird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... amongst our conqueror's children and subjects, but that does not make me forget who I am nor whence I have come. Let us talk together of our country and of the slender hopes which yet remain that she may gird herself up and make common cause against the foe. Oh, would that I might live to see the day, even though my life might pay the forfeit of my father's patriotism. Let Edward slay me — ay, and every hostage he holds in his hand — so that our country shakes off the ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... devout prayer, in the middle of his delivery he raised his hand and gave him a sturdy blow on the neck, and then, with his own sword, a smart slap on the shoulder, all the while muttering between his teeth as if he was saying his prayers. Having done this, he directed one of the ladies to gird on his sword, which she did with great self-possession and gravity, and not a little was required to prevent a burst of laughter at each stage of the ceremony; but what they had already seen of the novice knight's prowess kept their laughter ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... dulness. What by early hours and moderate meals? A total blank. Oh, never let the lying poets be believed who 'tice men from the cheerful haunts of streets, or think they mean it not of a country village. In the ruins of Palmyra I could gird myself up to solitude, or muse to the snorings of the Seven Sleepers; but to have a little teasing image of a town about one, country folks that do not look like country folks, shops two yards square, half-a-dozen apples and two penn'orth of over-looked gingerbread for the lofty ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... constant variance of her never wearying or weary friend was more than she could long put up with. She called upon Lord Keppel almost every day, having brought him from home for the good of his health, to gird up his loins, or rather get his belly girths on, and come along the sands with her, and dig into new places. But he, though delighted for a while with Byrsa stable, and the social charms of Master Popplewell's old cob, and a rick of fine tan-colored clover hay and ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... either in war or peace.[50] Perhaps the best remaining example is Maiden[51] Castle, which dominates Dorchester, being at once the largest and the most untouched by later ages. Here three huge concentric ramparts, nearly three miles in circuit, gird in a space of about fifty acres on a gentle swell of the chalk ridge above the modern town by the river. A single tortuous entrance, defended by an outwork, gives access to the levelled interior. All, save ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... he gird on his weapons, even to his quiver, while the others stripped, and off they set. But Siegfried easily passed them and arrived at the lime-tree where was the well. But he would not drink first for courtesy, even although he was ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... no heard of our letter," said the mother-in-law, "making our John [Gibbie] the Queen's cooper for certain? and scarce a chield that had ever hammered gird upon tub but was applying ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... as keen and scrutinizing as their own, answering every question promptly in a firm voice, and, just as the blow seemed ready to fall, parrying it by a movement so skilful as to compel his adversary to change his ground and gird himself up for a new attack,—this was something which, with all their experience, they had not counted upon, and knew not how to meet. Day after day he was brought to the bar. Hour after hour they laboriously plied question upon question. ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... all men in peril—on the uneasiness, like," said he, "should always gird themselves as tightly as ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... gird our loins, my brethren dear, Our heavenly home discerning; Our absent Lord has left us word, "Let every lamp ...
— Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days • Annie L. Burton
... this that darkeneth my counsel, With words devoid of knowledge? Now gird up thy loins like a man, For I shall ask of thee, and ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... then, thou Mightiest, in thy Father's might, Ascend my chariot, guide the rapid wheels That shake Heaven's basis, bring forth all my war, My bow and thunder; my almighty arms Gird on, and sword upon thy puissant thigh; Pursue these sons of darkness, drive them out From all Heaven's bounds into the utter deep: There let them learn, as likes them, to despise God ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... center of the stream and slipped into a little cave formed by ice and snow frozen over a clump of low bushes. There he hid himself like an Eskimo in his snow hut. My trudging near by frightened the bird out of the farther doorway, and he dashed away pellmell, hurling a saucy gird of protestation at me, and was seen by me no more. I examined the little snow house. It was very cunning indeed, and might well have made a cozy shelter for the little wren in stormy weather. My next meeting with a ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... dwell on the green, Hye you there apace; Let none come there but that virgins been To adorn her grace: And when you come, whereas she in place, See that your rudeness do not you disgrace; Bind your fillets fast, And gird in your waste, For more fineness, with a ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... and followed her with sorrowful eyes, until he could blot it out. Sometimes she seemed to advance rapidly, but in her haste the little ones had fallen back, and it was the sorrowing angel who recorded her progress. Sometimes so intent was she to gird up her loins and have her lamp trimmed and burning, that the little children wandered away quite into forbidden paths, and it was the angel over the left shoulder ...
— The Angel Over the Right Shoulder - The Beginning of a New Year • Elizabeth Wooster Stuart Phelps
... love thy tempests when the broad-winged blast Rouses thy billows with his battle call, When gathering clouds, in phalanx black and vast Like armed shadows gird thy ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... appall thee! Mark the East, with splendor dyed! Slight the fetters that enthrall thee; Fling the shell of sleep aside! Gird thee for the high endeavor; Shun the crowd's ignoble ease! Fails the noble spirit never, Wise to think, and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... sacrifice; that souls that do this sincerely are caught up, so to speak, into the heavenly chariot of God, and move upward thus; while the merely subjective and emotional religion is, to continue the metaphor, as if a man should gird up his loins to run in company with the heavenly impulse. They would say that the objective act of worship may have a subjective emotional effect, but that it has a true value quite independent of any subjective effect. They would say that the idea ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... bemoan any darkness? Shall we not rather gird up our strength to encounter it, that we too from our side may break the passage for the light beyond? He who fights with the dark shall know the gentleness that makes man great—the dawning countenance of the God of hope. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... swore to pardon his son Khuzru and all who had supported Khuzru. He was then brought into the presence of Akbar. The old Padishah was past all speech. He made a sign with his hand that Selim should take the imperial diadem and gird on the imperial sword. Selim obeyed. He prostrated himself upon the ground before the couch of his dying father; he touched the ground with his head. He then left the chamber. A few hours had passed away and Akbar was dead. He died in October, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... desolation, the day of Armageddon, and ere the sun sets red upon it many a thousand must pass through the gates of doom, we, mayhap, among them. Then up with the flag of freedom; out with the steel of truth, gird on the buckler of righteousness, and snatch the shield of hope. Fight, fight for the liberty of the land that bore you, for the memory of Christ, the King who died for you, for the faith to which you are born; fight, fight, and when the fray is done, then, and not before, ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... people did according to the word of Moses, and after the young storks had grown to full size, he ordered them to be starved for three days. On the third day the king said unto them, "Let every man put on his armor and gird his sword upon him. Each one shall mount his horse, and each shall set his stork upon his hand, and we will rise up and fight against the city opposite to the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... fated road Ye cannot turn: then take ye up your load. Not yours to tread, or leave the unknown way, Ye must go o'er it, meet ye what ye may. Gird up your souls within ye to the deed, Angels, and fellow-spirits, bid ye speed! What though the brightness dim, the pleasure fade, The glory wane,—oh! not of these is made The awful life that to your trust is given. Children of God! inheritors of heaven! Mourn not the ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler
... he had yet forgiven and joined hands with them both in 1840, in the hope that the power of Clay and his Eastern allies might be broken. In Congress and out he was the leader of the South as that section began to gird her loins for the fight over tariff, slavery, ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... regarded as the reply to such a position as that taken by Dr. Stoddard. If the white world conceives it to be its destiny to exploit the darker races of mankind, then it simply remains for the darker races to gird their loins for the contest. "What of the darker world that watches? Most men belong to this world. With Negro and Negroid, East Indian, Chinese, and Japanese they form two-thirds of the population of the world. A belief in humanity is a belief ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... thy neighbour's house, she knocks upon thy door, Bjoern. Gudruda, thy sister, is my betrothed, and thou art a party to this feud," said Eric. "Therefore it becomes thee better to hold her honour and thy own against this Northlander, than to gird at me for that in ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... adult activities, to take on adult points of view, to bear adult responsibilities. Naturally it is done in ways appropriate to their natures. At first it is imitative play, constructive play, etc.—nature's method of bringing children to observe the serious world about them, and to gird themselves for entering into it. The next stage, if normal opportunities are provided, is playful participation in the activities of their elders. This changes gradually into serious participation as they grow older, ...
— What the Schools Teach and Might Teach • John Franklin Bobbitt
... named William Pepperell, who was pretty well known and liked among the people. As to military skill, he had no more of it than his neighbors. But, as the governor urged him very pressingly, Mr. Pepperell consented to shut up his ledger, gird on a sword, and assume the title ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Britain doing? Reaching for California, hungering for Texas, eyeing Cuba. She hated republican institutions. She would gird them with her own monarchist principles, bodied forth in fortifications and military posts. It should not be. Douglas had said: "I would blot out the lines of the map which now mark our national boundaries on this continent and make the area of liberty as broad as the continent ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... Christian ground, and fight against it with Christian weapons, whilst your feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. And you are now loudly called upon by the cries of the widow and the orphan, to arise and gird yourselves for this great moral conflict, with the whole armour of righteousness upon the right hand and on ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke
... merchant, named William Pepperell, who was pretty well known and liked among the people. As to military skill, he had no more of it than his neighbors. But, as the governor urged him very pressingly, Mr. Pepperell consented to shut up his leger, gird on a sword, and assume the title ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... evermore Speaking, debating, as if all were peace; 975 I have seen many a bright-embattled field, But never one so throng'd as this to-day. For like the leaves, or like the sands they come Swept by the winds, to gird the city round. But Hector! chiefly thee I shall exhort. 980 In Priam's spacious city are allies Collected numerous, and of nations wide Disseminated various are the tongues. Let every Chief his proper troop command, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... beat up for recruits; open the door to &c. (facilitate) 705. set one's house in order, make all snug; clear the decks, clear for action; close one's ranks; shuffle the cards. prepare oneself; serve an apprenticeship &c. (learn) 539; lay oneself out for, get into harness, gird up one's loins, buckle on one's armor, reculer pour mieux sauter[Fr], prime and load, shoulder arms, get the steam up, put the horses to. guard against, make sure against; forearm, make sure, prepare for the evil ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Thy Father, let us now see Thy great power, so that men shall hail Thee their God, and the people may bend their knees unto Thee. Strengthen and guide the fighting arm of Thy believing soldiers, and help them, Thou invincible King of Battles. Gird Thyself up, Thou mighty fighting Hero; gird Thy sword on Thy loins, and smite our enemy hip and thigh. Art Thou not the Lord who directest the wars of the whole world, who breakest the bow, who splinterest the spear, and burnest the chariots with fire? ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... all Set foot. 'Twas but a wraith of Helen, sent By Zeus, to make much wrath and ravishment. So forth for home, bearing the virgin bride, Let Pylades make speed, and lead beside Thy once-named brother, and with golden store Stablish his house far off on Phocis' shore. Up, gird thee now to the steep Isthmian way, Seeking Athena's blessed rock; one day, Thy doom of blood fulfilled and this long stress Of penance past, ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides
... false frightfulness, puts on its true beauty, and becomes at once the evening star of memory and the morning star of hope, the Hesper of the sinking flesh, the Phosphor of the rising soul. Let the night come, then: it shall be welcome. And, as we gird our loins to enter the ancient mystery, we will exclaim, with vanishing voice, to ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... had'st thou England's chalky rocks, To gird thy watery waist; her healthful mounts, With tender grass to feed thy nibbling flocks: Her pleasant groves, and crystalline clear founts, Most happy should'st thou be by just accounts, That in thine age so fresh a youth ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... not reckon myself worthy, and hardly hoped for it; but the Lord saw the wish, though never formed into a petition, and indulged me. I bless him for it. And now, farewell human friendships; let me gird up the loins of my mind, and run with patience the little further, looking unto Jesus, and following also him my pastor, 'who, through faith and ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... than the children of men; grace is poured into Thy lips: therefore God hath blessed Thee forever. 3. Gird Thy sword upon Thy thigh, O mighty one, Thy glory and Thy majesty. 4. And in Thy majesty ride on prosperously, because of truth and meekness and righteousness: and Thy right hand shall teach Thee terrible things. 5. Thine arrows are sharp; the peoples fall under Thee; they are in the heart ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... "do you not know that the divers, when plunging into the sea to seek pearls, always gird a safety-rope around their waist for the purpose of being drawn to the surface whenever they are in ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... that Time has turned to jest, Pardoning old necessities no pardon can efface— That undying sin we shared in Rouen marketplace. Now we watch the new years shape, wondering if they hold Fiercer lightnings in their heart than we launched of old. Now we hear new voices rise, question, boast or gird, As we raged (rememberest thou?) when our crowds were stirred, Now we count new keels afloat, and new hosts on land, Massed like ours (rememberest thou?) when our strokes were planned. We were schooled for dear life's sake, to know each other's blade What can ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling
... Johnnie Bull pledges his word, To keep it he'll gird on his sword, While allies and sons Will shoulder their guns; The prince, and the ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens
... Seeing the priest gird up his cassock and step forward to help the sobbing girl in her search; Colonel Winslow questioned of the interpreter as to what the damsel had lost ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... laughs a maiden whose Greek face might have served Pheidias for a model, "San Costanzo is our protector, but he is old and the Madonna is young, so young and so pretty, signore, and she is my protectress." A fisherman backs up the feminine logic by a gird at the silver image which is evidently the strong point of the opposite party. The little commune is said to have borrowed a sum of money on the security of this work of art, and the fisherman is correspondingly ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... on thy coast, some thousand ages hence, New pilots rise, bold enterprise commence, Some new Columbus (happier let him be, More wise and great and virtuous far than me) Launch on the wave, and tow'rd the rising day Like a strong eaglet steer his untaught way, Gird half the globe, and to his age unfold A strange new world, the world we call the old. From Finland's glade to Calpe's storm-beat head He'll find some tribes of scattering wildmen spread; But one vast ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... gift was undesir'd, and came too late! Did you, for this, unhappy me convey Thro' foes and fires, to see my house a prey? Shall I my father, wife, and son behold, Welt'ring in blood, each other's arms infold? Haste! gird my sword, tho' spent and overcome: 'T is the last summons to receive our doom. I hear thee, Fate; and I obey thy call! Not unreveng'd the foe shall see my fall. Restore me to the yet unfinish'd fight: My death is wanting to conclude the night.' Arm'd once again, my glitt'ring sword I wield, ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... use great numbers. Besides, they have a robe of the same fur, in the form of a cloak, which they wear in the Irish or Egyptian style, with sleeves which are attached with a string behind. This is the way they are dressed in winter, as is seen in figure D. When they go into the fields, they gird up their robe about the body; but when in the village, they leave off their sleeves and do not gird themselves. The Milan trimmings for decorating their garments are made of glue and the scrapings of the before-mentioned skins, of which they make bands in various styles according to their fancy, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... cried. Arm, Warriours, arm for fight; the foe at hand, Whom fled we thought, will save us long pursuit This day; fear not his flight; so thick a cloud He comes, and settled in his face I see Sad resolution, and secure: Let each His adamantine coat gird well, and each Fit well his helm, gripe fast his orbed shield, Borne even or high; for this day will pour down, If I conjecture aught, no drizzling shower, But rattling storm of arrows barbed with fire. ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... the wide, tented field in the battle of life, With an army of millions before you; Like a hero of old gird your soul for the strife And let not the foeman tramp o'er you; Act, act like a soldier and proudly rush on The most valiant in Bravery's van, With keen, flashing sword cut your way to the front And show to ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... of the new world and the old. In saying all this, I have seen less than half the grandeur of the English race. How insignificant in comparison are all the other nations of the earth, one nation alone excepted. Russia and Great Britain literally gird the globe where either continent has the greatest breadth, a fact which, taken in connexion with their early annals, can scarcely fail to be regarded as the work of a special Providence. After the fall of the Roman empire, a scanty and obscure people suddenly burst on the west and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... these declarations, what am I to reply to them? Must I profess my sympathy and accordance of opinion with them, and admit to you, that, though yesterday a private citizen, with a heart burning to be freed from fetters, I must to-day gird on the sword. May Heaven favour my lot in the absence of personal merit! To my country I owe my life and the position I hold—from having contributed to its welfare—can I then neglect the duty that I owe to it? No, my dear friend, ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... lying concealed under the snugly-cushioned fauteuils of cabinet ministers and their pampered placeholders and hunters—not, beneath the straight-backed horsehair chairs of miserable clerks. It is unmanly thus for giants to gird at pigmies! ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... way of life To all down in the valley? Then gird ye, gird ye for the strife; Against the ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss; The Hell of Waters! where they howl and hiss, And boil in endless torture; while the sweat Of their great agony, wrung out from this Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet That gird the gulf around, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... Wallachians, the grand Signior's couriers, perform wonderful journeys, by reason they have liberty to dismount the first person they meet upon the road, giving him their own tired horses; and that to preserve themselves from being weary, they gird themselves straight about the middle with a broad girdle; but I could never ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... high cliffs looking heavenward, O valleys green and fair. Sea cliffs that seem to gird and guard Our island once so dear, In vain your beauty now ye spread, For we are numbered with the dead; A robber band has seized the land, And we ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... it," said the man of quiet endurance; "and now gird up thy loins to depart. The fog will rapidly disperse; and it may be that some distant light will guide us ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... ye, at ony rate. But where's t' curate? He's happen gone to visit some poor body in a sick gird, or he's happen hunting down vermin ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... That thus in person goe with thee to hunt: My princely robes thou seest are layd aside, Whose glittering pompe Dianas shrowdes supplies, All fellowes now disposde alike to sporte, The woods are wide, and we haue store of game: Faire Troian, hold my golden bowe awhile, Vntill I gird my quiuer to my side: Lords goe before, we two ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe
... preaching the very cause of some of the gentlemen whom I am opposing when I preach the cause of free industry in the United States, for I think they are slowly girding the tree that bears the inestimable fruits of our life, and that if they are permitted to gird it entirely nature will take her revenge and the ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... would visit Christophe without going to see his brother: and that astonished Christophe: for there was no great sympathy between himself and Andre, who used hardly ever to open his mouth except to gird at something or somebody,—which was very tiresome: and when Christophe said anything, Andre would not listen. Christophe made no effort to conceal the fact that he found his visits a nuisance: but Andre did ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... body in the world. And for all the work in Canada we have sketched, the total strength of the Force is about 1,700 of all ranks. There are some few people who so lack the power to sense nation-wide conditions that they gird at the expense of maintaining the corps. But men of vision know that the Mounted Police save Canada annually from moral and material losses that make expenditure upon this famous old law-and-order corps pale ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... society. We have no objection to their carrying on the business of human beings, so long as they allow us an uninterrupted trading of, say, a hundred miles. Within that charmed and charming circle they should not set foot, and we are quite willing in addition, for them, to gird themselves about with the circumference of another thousand. It is not that they are disagreeable or stupid, or in any way obviously objectionable. Bores are more frequently clever than dull, and the only all-round definition of a bore is—The Person ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... again!" cried D'Artagnan. "Gird on your sword, and win a coronet. You want a title; I want money; the cardinal ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... has given you many a shrewd nip and gird since that time, but either my eyes are grown dimmer, or my old friend is the same, who stood before me three and twenty years ago—his hair a little confessing the hand of time, but still shrouding the same capacious brain,—his ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... 1775, what if it had been told the men all red with battle at Lexington and Bunker Hill,—'your sons will gird the Court House with chains to kidnap a man; Boston will vote for a Bill which puts the liberty of any man in the hands of a Commissioner, to be paid twice as much for making a Slave as for declaring a freeman; and Boston ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... for I wish to go forth from your empire, and I shall go to offer my service to the king who reigns over Britain, that he may dub me knight. Never, indeed, on any day as long as I live shall I wear visor on my face or helm on my head, I warrant you, till King Arthur gird on my sword if he deign to do it; for I will receive arms of no other." The emperor without more ado replies: "Fair son, in God's name, say not so. This land and mighty are diverse and contrary. And that man is a slave. ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... wayside, at every doorway. We could not starve, or die of thirst, or faint for lack of sleep, since every bush was a bed in spite of the garapatos or wood-ticks, the snore of the tree-toad, the hoarse shriek of the macaw, and the shrill gird of the guinea- fowl. Every bed was thus free, and there was land to be got for a song, enough to grow what would suffice for two men's daily wants. But we did not rest long upon the land—I have it still, land ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... rise from their graves to defend the banner of the Prophet. But that same banner thou shouldst seize and bear in thine own hand, most glorious Padishah! for only thy presence can give victory to our arms. Arise, then, and gird upon thy thigh the sword of thy illustrious ancestor Muhammad! Descend in the midst of thy host which yearns for the light of thy countenance, as the eyes of the sleepless yearn for the sun to rise, and put an end to the long night ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... up, my soul, shake off thy fears, And gird the gospel-armour on, March to the gates of endless joy Where thy ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts
... worst of these. In fact, the choice seemed auspicious. Hull had seen honorable service in the Revolution and had won the esteem of George Washington. He was now Governor of Michigan Territory. At sixty years of age he had no desire to gird on the sword. He was persuaded by Madison, however, to accept a brigadier general's commission and to lead the force ordered to Detroit. His instructions were vague, but in June, 1812, shortly before the declaration of war, he took command ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... We must not content ourselves with a pacification or truce which will permit us with facile weakness to open all the pores of our intelligence to ideas contrary to our conviction. It is necessary on the contrary to gird ourselves, to intrench ourselves. There is to-day, between us and many of our contemporaries, an irreconcilable disagreement that must be faced, a great combat in which parts must be taken. As far as I can see this is what it is. In a word, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... ideal, worth the name, will always have in it an ascetic element. And that element was so far present with her that personal suffering had come to bear a not wholly unlovely aspect. She had ceased to gird against it. So long as Richard was amused and fairly content, so long as the evil which had been abroad in Brockhurst House, that stormy autumn night, could be frustrated, and the estrangement between herself and Richard,—unacknowledged, yet sensibly present,—which ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... receive those who will open unto him. He is saying, "Open to me ... for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night," Cant. 5:2. "Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching: verily I say unto you, That he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them," Luke 12:37. Said Jesus, "If any man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him," ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... glimpses; and those we love, lean across the boundary line and compassionate us. So my Gethsemane called down the one strengthening Angel of all the heavenly hosts, who had most power to comfort my heart, and gird me for my fate, my father, my noble father. God, in pity, sent him to exhort me to bear my ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... not a man of war, my boy, but a man of peace. All the same, though, whenever either your father or young Mark Eden's arms his men to drive these ruffians out of our land, I am going to gird on my old sword, which is as bright and sharp as ever, to strike a blow for the women and children. Yes, for pretty Minnie Darley, and Mary Eden too. For I love 'em both, boy, and have ever ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... closed with him for that purpose, and even got him down and had almost stifled him, had not some others of the Christians come to his aid. The less of these women are swathed with cotton cloth from the ancle to the knee, which gives them a very thick appearance; and they gird these ornaments, which they call Coiro, and consider as very genteel, so tightly that the leg appears very thin when they happen to slip off[8]. The same swaths are used both by men and women in Jamaica upon the smaller parts of their arms ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... one glides In gilded barge, or in crowned, velvet car, From gay Whitehall to gloomy Temple Bar—" (Where—had you slipt, that head were bleaching now! And that same rabble, splitting for a hedge, Had joined their rows to cheer the active headsman; Perchance, in mockery, they'd gird the skull With a hop-leaf crown! Bitter the brewing, Noll!) Are crowns the end-all of ambition? Remember Charles Stuart! and that they who make can break! This same Whitehall may black its front with crape, And this broad window be the portal twice To lead upon a scaffold! ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... woe-illumed mind, Thou subtle tyrant! Peace is in the grave. The grave hides all things beautiful and good: I am a God and cannot find it there, 640 Nor would I seek it: for, though dread revenge, This is defeat, fierce king, not victory. The sights with which thou torturest gird my soul With new endurance, till the hour arrives When they shall be no types of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... offer, and your pious prayers, "To great Latona, and the heavenly twins, "Latona's offspring; all your temples bound "With laurel garlands. This the goddess bids; "Through me commands it." All of Thebes obey, And gird their foreheads with the order'd leaves; The incense burn, and with the sacred flames Their pious prayers ascend. Lo! 'midst a crowd Of nymphs attendant, far conspicuous seen; Comes Niobe, in gorgeous Phrygian robe, Inwrought with gold, attir'd. Beauteous her form, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... Comrades, gird your swords to-night, For the battle is with dawn! Oh, the clash of shields together, With the triumph coming on! Greet the foe, And lay him low, When strong ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... draw interest upon the money invested. Is it to be wondered at that caustic critics of human nature and inconsistencies catalogue marriage for the wife under the head of mendicancy? Would it not be phenomenal if women with eyes, and with brains behind the eyes, did not gird at the necessity of suing humbly for really ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... to a memory of many years which I have not thought it worth while to freshen, has a weaker draught of this rancid and mawkish sentimentality. But having in those days missed (or failed over) Daniel, I thought it incumbent on me to gird myself up to its eight hundred pages. A more dismal book, even to skim, I have seldom taken up. The hero—a prig of the first water—marries one of those apparently only half-flesh-and-blood wives who, novelistically, never fail to go wrong. He cannot, in the then state of French ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Napoleon conceived at Elba. Almost immediately after his arrival in France he was to order the Marshals on whom he could best rely to defend to the utmost the entrances to the French territory and the approaches to Paris, by pivoting on the triple line of fortresses which gird the north and east of France. Davoust was 'in petto' singled out for the defence of Paris. He, was to arm the inhabitants of the suburbs, and to have, besides, 20,000 men of the National Guard at his disposal. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... risk land and life in a struggle against overwhelming odds; and his honest English spirit would have shrunk with horror from means such as were contemplated by the Petres and Tyrconnels. Indeed he would have been as ready as any of his Protestant neighbours to gird on his sword, and to put pistols in his holsters, for the defence of his native land against an invasion of French or Irish Papists. Such was the general character of the men to whom James now looked as to his most trustworthy instruments for ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Leoni. "They must be saddled. Quick! Slip off my pouch and gird it on. There is gold enough within, and if that will not move the people there ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... anything to match her. She, however, once out of the public flames, had to recall her scorchings to be gentle with herself. Under a defeat, she would have been angrily self-vindicated. The victory of the ashen laurels drove her mind inward to gird at the hateful yoke, in compassion for its pair of victims. Quite earnestly by such means, yet always bearing a comical eye on her subterfuges, she escaped the extremes of personal blame. Those advocates of her opponent in and out of court compelled her honest heart to search within and own to faults. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... new matters have you now afoot, sirrah, ha? I would fain come with my cockatrice one day, and see a play, if I knew when there were a good bawdy one; but they say you have nothing but HUMOURS, REVELS, and SATIRES, that gird and f—t at ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... services, or at certain points in the sacrifices, it was incumbent upon him to wear sandals, the panther-skin over his shoulder, and the thick lock of hair falling over his right ear; at other times he must gird himself with the loin-cloth having a jackal's tail, and take the shoes from off his feet before proceeding with his office, or attach a false beard to his chin. The species, hair, and age of the victim, the way in which it ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... with a pin, every prick with a thorn, nay, every blow that God giveth with his Word upon the heart of sinners, doth not therefore break them. God gave Ahab such a blow that he made him stoop, fast, humble himself, gird himself with and lie in sackcloth, which was a great matter for a king, and go softly, and yet he never had a broken heart (1 Kings 21:27,29). What shall I say? Pharaoh and Saul confessed their sins, Judas repented himself of his ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... proof. Set your alarum-clock so that twice in the night you may be roused. Gird then yourself and patrol. But lightly slumber. Should my bell sound in your room spring instantly to my bedside. To ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... the Dean's lady walking up and down the grass, with her children sporting around her, and her pink parasol over her lovely head—the Doctor stept out of the French windows of the dining-room into the lawn, which skirts that apartment, and left the other white neckcloths to gird at my lord Bishop. Then the Doctor went up and offered Mrs. Dean his arm, and they sauntered over the ancient velvet lawn, which had been mowed and rolled for immemorial Deans, in that easy, quiet, comfortable ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... works; but he declined any satisfactory answer; saying, if Mr. Theobald had not writ about it sufficiently, there were three or four more new editions of his plays coming out, which he hoped would satisfy every one: concluding, "I marvel nothing so much as that men will gird themselves at discovering obscure beauties in an author. Certes the greatest and most pregnant beauties are ever the plainest and most evidently striking; and when two meanings of a passage can in the least balance our judgments which ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... one may become great; ours will fail, unless we gird up our loins and do humble and honest days' work, without trying to do the thing by the job, or to get a great nation made by a patent process. It is not safe to say that we shall not have victories till we are ready for them. We shall have victories, and whether ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... it? One fact now seems very clear—at any rate to me. We've got to pause. We haven't got to gird our loins with a new frenzy and our larynxes with a new Glory Song. Not a bit of it. Before you dash off to put salt on the tail of a new religion or of a new Leader of Men, dear reader, sit down quietly and pull yourself together. Say to yourself: "Come now, ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... Guilds than it is to learn the principal parts of a large number of irregular verbs: possibly it is much more difficult. But under certain conditions which we have seen produced, a boy will find it "easy" to gird himself up to the former task; indeed, he will get so absorbed that he will find it difficult to leave off. Few questions are less "easy" than those connected with a paper-money currency, but one half-holiday afternoon we found a vigorous discussion on this subject in progress between ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... the story of those ragged bleeding feet—of the great thinkers of the ages who have found the path of truth through blood and tears and then walked its way to the stake, to the block and the gallows? Come with me into the big world of the past—read, study, think, and gird yourself with power! We're just entering on the struggle that means life or death to our Republic. I believe as I believe in God, that we have set a beacon light on the shores of the world that will guide the human race to its mightiest achievements—unless we fail to keep its ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... satirized in the 'Bards' was Wordsworth. Years after, Byron met him at a dinner, and on his return told his wife that the "one feeling he had for him from the beginning to the end of the visit was reverence." Yet he never ceased to gird at him in his satires. The truth is, that consistency was never to be expected in Byron. Besides, he inherited none of the qualities needed for an orderly and noble life. He came of a wild ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... In one play alone has he given up the whole stage to them, and it is said that the "Merry Wives of Windsor" was only written at the request of Queen Elizabeth, who wished to see Sir John Falstaff in love. It is from beginning to end one prolonged "gird at citizens," and we can hardly wonder that they felt a grievance against the dramatic profession. In the other plays of Shakespeare the humbler classes appear for the main part only occasionally and incidentally. His opinion ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... of a human shape:— 40 Equal the strength and number of each foe, Sixteen appear'd like jet, sixteen like snow. As their shape varies various is the name, Different their posts, nor is their strength the same. There might you see two Kings with equal pride 45 Gird on their arms, their Consorts by their side; Here the Foot-warriors glowing after fame, There prancing Knights and dexterous Archers came And Elephants, that on their backs sustain Vast towers of war, and fill and shake ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... hands. Perchance her feet, with furry buskins graced, May shuddering walk the cold Canadian waste, And rest contented with a bleak repose In shrubless climes of never-thawing snows. Yes, in those woods that gird the northern lakes, Pathless as yet, and wild with shaggy brakes, Or in the rank savannahs of the south, Or sea-like prairies near Missouri's mouth, Fate may conduct her to some sacred spot, Where to resume her sceptre ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... Spirit of Evil—sought to lead me astray. Rough and steep was the path indicated by divine suggestion; mossy and declining the green way along which Temptation strewed flowers; but whereas, methought, the Deity of Love, the Friend of all that exists, would smile well-pleased were I to gird up my loins and address myself to the rude ascent; so, on the other hand, each inclination to the velvet declivity seemed to kindle a gleam of triumph on the brow of the man-hating, God-defying demon. Sharp and short ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... and Mammon, Christ and the devil in the same act. You remember the trial, the ruling of the bench, the swearing on the stand, the witness coming back to alter and enlarge his testimony and have another gird at the prisoner. You have not forgotten the trials before Judge Kane at Philadelphia and Judge Greer at Christiana ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... vineyards shame Engedi, and the lilies of peace shall lift up their stately heads, and the 'voice of the turtle shall be heard in the land!' Have faith, grapple yourself by prayer to the feet of God, and he will gird, and lift up, ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... That blessing ye brought forth, Behold! it lies in fetters On the soil that gave it birth: But the trumpet must be heard And the charger must be spurr'd; For your father Armin's Sprite Calls down from heaven, that ye Shall gird you for the fight ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... were, pressed together, so as to include as much as possible within a small space. That which is compendious (L. com-, together, and pendo, weigh) gathers the substance of a matter into a few words, weighty and effective. The succinct (L. succinctus, from sub-, under, and cingo, gird; girded from below) has an alert effectiveness as if girded for action. The summary is compacted to the utmost, often to the point of abruptness; as, we speak of a summary statement or a summary dismissal. That which is terse (L. tersus, from tergo, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... to which the Popular Tale shows itself most hostile is that of avarice. The folk-tales of all lands delight to gird at misers and skinflints, to place them in unpleasant positions, and to gloat over the sufferings which attend their death and embitter their ghostly existence. As a specimen of the manner in which the humor of the ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... workings o' the Almighty, and must needs reject the help o' the children o' light in favour o' the bare-legged spawn o' Prelacy, wha are half Pagan, half Popish. Had he walked in the path o' the Lord he wudna be lying in the Tolbooth o' Edinburgh wi' the tow or the axe before him. Why did he no gird up his loins and march straight onwards wi' the banner o' light, instead o' dallying here and biding there like a half-hairted Didymus? And the same or waur will fa' upon us if we dinna march on intae the land and ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... which he raised his hand and gave him a good blow on the neck, and, after that, a handsome stroke over the shoulders, with his own sword, still muttering between his teeth, as if in prayer. This being done, he commanded one of the ladies to gird on his sword, an office she performed with much alacrity, as well as discretion, no small portion of which was necessary to avoid bursting with laughter at every part of the ceremony; but indeed the prowess they had seen displayed by the new knight ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Gird thy heavenly armour on, Wear it ever night and day, Near thee lurks the evil one, Therefore, Watch ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... be no selfish hopes, no selfish cares, to prevent me from concentrating all my energies and thoughts upon the work appointed me to do. I have been wasting my time in idle dreams of earthly enjoyment; I have been rudely awakened. O Lord of hosts, strengthen Thy servant to arise and gird up his spirit to perform fearlessly and faithfully the ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... accusations and the public shame he was so undeservedly bringing upon her broke her heart. I assured her that she would be vindicated, that Armstrong would be on his knees to her at the trial's end. Your father tried to infuse her with courage, to gird her for the coming struggle to defend her own good name, but it was all of no use. She was too broken in spirit. Life held nothing more for her. On the night before the case was to have ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... reconciles the union of contraries in accordance with the law of God, and fills wide realms of life with the radiance of hope, which otherwise would remain mantled in perpetual gloom. If we depended upon those who are like ourselves to sympathize with us, and gird us with strength, we should utterly fail. Oaks cannot lend support to oaks. The vine can do this for the oak, and the oak can give support to the vine; but an oak cannot give strength to its kindred while fulfilling the functions of its life. The same law ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... and thy grief restrain, And firm in duty's path remain. Dear brother, lay thy scorn aside, And be the right thy joy and pride. Thy ready zeal and thoughtful care To aid what rites should grace the heir,— These 'tis another's now to ask; Come, gird thee for thy noble task, That Bharat's throning rites may he Graced with the things prepared for me. And with thy gentle care provide That her fond heart, now sorely tried With fear and longing for my ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI |
