"Greensward" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the greensward to the wood, with my gun in my hand, a brace of pistols in my girdle, and my cutlass hanging before me; but, when I was just entering the wood, looking behind me and all around the plain, "Is it possible," says I, "that so much art (for ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... knee-deep. The view ahead was a white strand which fringed both shores, and to it fell wooded slopes, interrupted here and there by low sandstone cliffs of warm red colouring, and now and again by a dingle with cracks of greensward. ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... trespass on MacRae ground. But he smiled at that childishness. It was childish, MacRae knew. But he felt that way about it, just as he often felt that he himself had a perfect right to range the whole end of Squitty, to tramp across greensward and through forest depths, despite Horace Gower's legal title to the land. MacRae was aware of this anomaly in his attitude, without troubling to ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... profitable hour on the shores of that great sequestered lake, and as they watched the picturesque groups— clustering round the blazing fires, preparing their morning meal, smoking their pipes, examining and repairing the boats, or suning their stalwart limbs in wild, careless attitudes upon the greensward— might have found a subject worthy the most brilliant effusions of the pen, or the most ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... overbore them here as it had done in the vault; and they yielded the more easily, because every man knew in his heart that he would never see Maskew again alive. So within ten minutes all were winding up the bridle-path, horses and men, all except three; for there were left upon the brambly greensward of the under-cliff Maskew and Elzevir and I, and the pistol lay ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... for the night, comrades," said he, dismounting; "here is water and food for our nags, a fine piece of greensward to spread our blankets on, and a thick-leaved oak to keep the dew off us. Now, Maxton, you are an old campaigner, let us see how soon you'll have a ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... the wide plateau between the camp and the highway when the ambulance bearing the afflicted officer came slowly over the road worn through the greensward. Hussey sat solemnly on the seat with the driver, and as the vehicle reached the company, standing at rest, Barney Moore in the rear rank ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... been helping to gather apples. The principal farm labors at this time are ploughing for winter rye, and breaking up the greensward for next year's crop of potatoes, gathering squashes, and not much else, except such year-round employments as milking. The crop of rye, to be sure, is in process of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... moment there arrived at the same patch of greensward a pedestrian some years older than Percival St. John,—a tall, muscular, raw-boned, dust-covered, travel-stained pedestrian; one of your pedestrians in good earnest,—no amateur in neat gambroon manufactured by Inkson, who leaves his carriage ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a great level field of greensward, oval in shape, with the track in beautiful condition. Far down the track on either hand, almost encircling the field, stretched the lines of the coaches, chariots, gigs, and wagons. Gentlemen on horseback and on foot, an eager, bustling crowd, gay with colours and bright faces, already ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... men differ, Abimelech. Sir Alexander wants me to turf them over! He says that, where you may have the smooth verdure, gravel walks are ridiculous; and are only tolerable in common pathways, where continual treading would wear away the greensward. But I know what has given him such a love for the soft grass. Sir Alexander is gouty, and loves ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... fair beams of the summer sun; she noticed minutely the stage of development which the chestnut blossoms had reached; one or two dandelion heads; a robin redbreast that was making himself exceedingly at home on the little spread of greensward behind the house. I don't know if Diana's senses were trying to cheat her heart; but from one item to another her eye went and her mind followed, in a maze of pain that was not cheated at all, till she heard her mother's steps forsake ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... On the greensward, a few paces distant, stood a man in white flannels: rather a fat man, to avow the worst at once, but, for the rest, distinctly a pleasant-looking; with a smiling, round, pink face, smooth-shaven, and a noticeable pair of big and ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... gone wandering, hand in hand with me, through the inner passages of my being? and have we groped together into all its chambers and examined their treasures or their rubbish? Not so. We have been standing on the greensward, but just within the cavern's mouth, where the common sunshine is free to penetrate, and where every footstep is therefore free to come. I have appealed to no sentiment or sensibilities save such as ...
— The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... dignity of a swan.... And there was Anne MacNeill, who handled a horse as a man would, and was a great archer—she could shoot as far as Alan could drive a golf-ball with a spoon.... Shane could always see her, a Diana on the greensward, leaning forward, listening to hear the smack of the arrow on the target.... And both these women were his good friends, the thought of them filling his mind like sweet lavender.... But when they were each alone ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... back. Their sharpened appetites make short work of the cold meats and pies. Treble X of somebody's own corking fizzes forth from brown jar and black bottle, and if more is wanted, it is fetched from the neighbouring tavern. Dinner done, the fiddle strikes up, and a dance on the greensward by the young people, while the old ones, stretched under the trees, enjoy a quiet gossip and a refreshing pipe, fills up the afternoon. There is always somebody at this crisis who is neither too old to dance nor ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... brink of a mountain stream in the gathering twilight of evening. The shadowy woodlands around me became a great theatre. The greensward before me ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... The greensward in the middle of this square contains two or three elms of immemorial age, besides many thrifty trees of a later planting. The wooden barrier by which it is enclosed was once adorned with a coat of white paint, now nearly worn ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... the ring, When the heart danc'd, and life was in its spring; Alas! unconscious of the kindred earth, That faintly echoed to the voice of mirth. The glow-worm loves her emerald light to shed, Where now the sexton rests his hoary head. Oft, as he turn'd the greensward with his spade, He lectur'd every youth that round him play'd; And, calmly pointing where his fathers lay, Rous'd him to rival each, the hero of his day. Hush, ye fond flutterings, hush! while here alone I search the records of each mouldering stone. ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... coming down to the Lakes he rather undervalued the pleasures of an al-fresco repast, preferring chairs and tables to the greensward of the mountains, or the moss-grown masses of rock by the lake shore; but these were probably the impressions of a cold, wet summer, and having soon learned thoroughly to appreciate these pleasures, he had his various chosen places which he thought ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... that Sir Patrick Gray for one could have entirely cleared his countenance of every recollection of their last meeting, of the men-at-arms thundering at his heels, and his nephew's body headless on the greensward—Douglas found no change in the King, who received and banqueted him "very royally," thinking if it were possible "with good deeds to withdraw him from his attempt that he purposed to do." After supper the King took his rebellious subject aside, into another room opening ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... hurried along with unseeing eyes until suddenly something bright attracted his attention, and he became aware that it was a shock of rough red hair under a ragged old cap. It was surely Carrots sitting on one of the benches, his eyes gazing moodily across the greensward to the street beyond. He did not notice Theo's approach, but started up quickly, as the latter stopped in front ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... park pretty much as nature made it; that is to say, there was no ornate parking, no attempt at landscape gardening. Ancient maples spread their crooked arms untrimmed, standing in haphazard groves. Wherever the greensward nourished, there grew pink-tipped daisies and kindred flowers of the wild. It was gutted in the middle with a ravine, the lower end of which, dammed by an earth embankment, formed a lake with the inevitable swans and other water-fowl. But, barring the lake and a wide drive that looped and ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... up to the castle, and on our way we found the greensward before the hunting-lodge, item, the whole space in front of the castle, already crowded with people, who, nevertheless, were quite quiet as we went by: we gave our names again to the huntsman. (I have never been able to remember ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... only in an increased gentleness of manner, and something in his voice and communications, as if he were speaking to a familiar, a very high compliment from him. While the lads were standing ready for the signal to plunge from the steep decline of greensward into the shining waters, Sir Austin called upon her to admire their beauty, and she did, and even advanced her head above his shoulder delicately. In so doing, and just as the start was given, a bonnet became visible to Richard. Young Ralph was heels in air before he moved, and then he ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... entrancing though forbidding beauty. A barren, arid plain, rimmed by mountains like a literal basin, still occupied in its lowest parts by the dregs of what had once filled it to the brim; no green meadows, not a tree worthy the name, scarce a patch of greensward to entice the adventurous wanderers into the valley. The slopes were covered with sagebrush, relieved by patches of chaparral oak and squaw-bush; the wild sunflower lent its golden hue to intensify the ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage
... my back I was lying, gazing up at what, surprisingly, seemed to be a ceiling festooned with garlands of roses and painted with ladies and cavaliers, idling about a stretch of greensward, decidedly in the Watteau style. Where was I? What had happened to make me feel so helpless? It reminded me of an episode of my childhood, a day when my pony had fallen and rolled upon me, and I had been carried home with two crushed ribs and ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... stout ropes were strained to the uttermost—at last the net came out bursting with salmon; more hands were hailed; it was run over the pebbles, up the bank, and onwards to a flat open spot, where, with a shout, it was emptied on the greensward. ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... been reading fifteen minutes, perhaps, when a muffled step on the heavy greensward caused her to glance up, to find ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... laborers, like what I seemed to recollect there, or else it was all changed during my absence. It had been nothing but dream work and enchantment. I should seek in vain for the old farmhouse, and for the greensward, the potato-fields, the root-crops, and acres of Indian corn, and for all that configuration of the land which I had imagined. It would be another spot, and an ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... his trousers pockets and gazed awed. Before him extended an immense circle of greensward, dotted on the edge with apple trees in blossom, under which groups of boys were lolling, or tumbling over one another in joyous cublike romping. To the left, across the circle, half a dozen red-coated, slate-topped, portly houses, overgrown with ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... folds of the flag stream out proudly in the breeze, as it rapidly descends the halyards, and flutters softly to the greensward. ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks. Part Second - Being the Second Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... the stoutest bow among them all, next to Robin's own, and a straight gray goose shaft, well-feathered and smooth, and stepping to the mark—while all the band, sitting or lying upon the greensward, watched to see him shoot—he drew the arrow to his cheek and loosed the shaft right deftly, sending it so straight down the path that it clove the mark in the very center. "Aha!" cried he, "mend thou that if thou canst"; ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... opening where the greensward was all trampled and stamped by the combatants' feet, and found the doctor kneeling by his patient just as they had left him, and the two Grenadiers with grounded arms standing with their hands resting on the muzzles of ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... cherished the dying sunbeams, yet struggled with the twilight. The bleating of sheep and lowing of cattle, at first faint, became louder as the flocks returned from their pastures and wandered amongst the tents. Girls hurried over the greensward to seek their fathers' cattle, or crouched down to milk those which had returned alone to their well-remembered folds. Some were coming from the river bearing the replenished pitcher on their heads or shoulders; others, no less graceful ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... had seen AEneas land, and Romulus ascend to the gods, the clear red flame shot up as the victims burned. The music of ten thousand horns and flutes burst forth, and the sacred dances began upon the greensward. I am too old to dance; but, I protest, even I stood up and threw off. We danced through three nights, dancing the old millenary out, dancing the new millenary in. We were all Romans, no strangers, no slaves. It was a solemn family feast, the ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... now hospitably entertained by King Evander. Seated on the greensward, they partook of a plenteous repast, and when the banquet was over, the king explained to AEneas and his companions the meaning of the religious festivities in which they had been engaged. It was through no vain superstition, he said, that they performed ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... out on the greensward by the hawthorn hedge we were followed by the little waitress, whose name, however pronounced, was written Nelw Evans. She asked us if we would write in the "Locked Book," whereupon she presented us with the key. It seems that there is ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... he muttered, seating himself at last by a window and looking out toward the sea, along a greensward on which the moonlight fell lovingly. "Poor Barney! Perhaps I ought to have gone on to Sea Cove and begun my investigations at once. But Inza was so tired. She has held up bravely, dear girl, through it all, but this evening she looked ready to drop. I felt that we ought not to go ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... cleared forthwith, and this was some time a-doing, seeing that the thick boughs were stuck fast in the trees all around; the nobles, as soon as all was made ready, would have ridden to meet his Majesty, but stayed still on the little greensward, because we already heard the noise of horses, carriages, and voices close to us in ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... was of the land where he dwelt. He saw the two sister Genii sitting in the same spot where he had at first beheld them. She who was of the far clime still retained the beauty and grace which were her's when her little foot first touched the greensward of the hitherto, by her, untrodden island. Still around her head was bound the grape-vine laden with rich, ripe, clusters, amongst which were intermingled locks of hair, of a hue resembling the yellow leaf. Still were her round and plump arms bound with the shining bracelets, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... if some seed of any of the grasses referred to should be carried into an elevated place, on a dry and stony greensward much exposed to the winds, and should germinate there, the plant which should be able to live in this place would always be badly nourished, and the individuals reproduced there continuing to exist under these depressing circumstances, ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... France to a greater degree than hitherto in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and almost without exception princely houses set out to rival one another in the splendour of their surroundings. Now came in the ornamental garden as distinct from the verger, and the preau became a greensward accessory, at once practical and decorative, the precursor of the pelouse and the parterre ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... large eyes were full of intelligence; and her curly ears so long that they trailed upon the ground. Georgette seemed to be as brisk and petulant as Frisky, and shared her sportiveness,—now scampering after the happy little spaniel, and now retreating, in order to be pursued upon the greensward in her turn. All at once, at the sight of a second person, who advanced with deliberate gravity, Georgette and Frisky were suddenly stopped in their diversion. The little King Charles, some steps in advance ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... flanking force of the invading host and presently it reached the outskirts of this beautiful park, which with hill and lake and greensward covers five hundred acres in the heart of Brooklyn. A few boys were deployed as skirmishers along the eastern edge of the Park, but the mass occupied hastily dug trenches near the monument to the Maryland troops on Lookout ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... he was on the greensward of Central Park, within full view of a couple of thousand drunken revelers, all of whom, if not otherwise occupied, asked for nothing better than a good view of their God in action. And whichever girl he chose would leave six others eagerly awaiting their turns, watching his every move ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... ascending from near the bank, and from the gestures of the Indian we understood that we were now approaching Kepenau's camp. In a short time shouts were heard, and we saw several wigwams erected on the greensward in a recess of the forest, surrounded by trees which sheltered them completely from ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... mighty subtlety, such ponderous gaiety. It was as though Jove, or Vulcan, or some other god of antiquity had come down to play games with the mortals. You would not have been much surprised if, when the shadows lengthened across the greensward and the umpire signalled that the day's play was done, he had wrapped himself in a cloud of glory ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... size of Newfoundland dogs; but what they lacked in size they made up in viciousness, so that it was about all the gallant cavalry could do to keep in their saddles. Indeed, many of them came to grief, spread out like galvanized bullfrogs upon the greensward, while their ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... them generally addicted. It is true I had never found either opportunity or inclination for perfecting myself in one or both of these games; but the pictured representations of cricket games, as depicted in books or prints, showing the participants dotted about over a smooth greensward, all attired in neat white flannels and all in graceful attitudes, convinced me it must be a much more orderly and consequently a more alluring pastime than ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... and children of the tribe were her chosen pupils. Seated in circles on the greensward beneath the spreading arches of giant oaks and maples, they listened to her teachings, and learned from her lips the wondrous story of Christ, who gave up his life on the cross that all tribes and races of mankind might live through Him. Then ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... which the gardeners were a few relics of the former herds of deer, in the shape of wide-antlered stags and dappled roes;) all the sights and sounds of summer beauty were united in that solitary greensward; and for the first time in my life I felt a regret pass over me that the grandeur of my family had decayed, and a faint fluttering became perceptible to me, round my heart, of a wish to restore our fortunes. But the intense appreciation of my own deficiencies in which I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... park scenery; this, however, does not hold good at Drinkstone, where Mr. Powell has been displayed excellent taste in the way of improving the landscape and creating a really charming effect by so skillfully blending the dressed grounds with the rich greensward of the park that it is not easy to tell where the one terminates or the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... with both hands firmly, and swung upon it with his whole weight. The frightened animal turned half round, stumbled, and rolled upon his side, his mate falling upon his knees beside him; the carriage was overturned with a crash, and little Pompey pitched out upon the greensward, unhurt. ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... father was not angry, and following him over the greensward we quickly reached the boat, where the box was stowed away under the bow to keep ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... brave soldier, stricken by a bullet, fell on the greensward. His friends bore him off the field, and Prohaska—Eleonore ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... his bed and walked out upon the lawn, where he found Bilbil reclining at ease upon the greensward. ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... of savages, rather take away from the first country-club effect. A corral seemed full of a seething mob of natives; we found later that this was the market, a place of exchange. Groups wandered idly here and there across the greensward; and other groups sat in circles under the shade of trees, each man's spear stuck in the ground behind him. At stated points were the Nubians, fine, tall, black, soldierly men, with red fez, khaki shirt, and short breeches, bare knees and feet, spiral puttees, and a broad red ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... me—an awe I had nearly forgotten, but revived by my crime. I pressed along, however, for to turn back would have been more dreadful than any fear. At length, with a sudden turn, the road left the trees behind, and what a scene opened before me! I stood on the verge of a large space of greensward, smooth and well-kept as a lawn, but somewhat irregular in surface. From all sides it rose towards the centre. There a broad, low rock seemed to grow out of it, and upon the rock stood the lordliest house my childish eyes had ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... hath been whispered, moreover, and the testimony of these two witnesses doth appear in some measure to countenance and confirm it, that thou hast at divers times this last summer been seen and heard alone, inasmuch as human eye may discover, on the narrow slip of greensward between the Avon and the chancel, distorting thy body like one possessed, and uttering strange language, like unto incantation. This, however, cometh not before me. Take heed! take heed unto thy ways; there are graver ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... placed on a lofty crag rising perpendicularly from the greensward on the west or landward side, and almost as steeply from the sea which washes the north and east sides, lies like a majestic lion on its mighty rock "brooding on ancient fame." The voices of children at play on the sands below sound faint and far in the still ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... those of the Engadine. We do not make this assertion because of the rhododendrons that abound on the borders of the lakes: we are not fond of this showy, pretentious shrub, whose flowers look as if they were moulded in wax for the decoration of some altar; but is it not delightful to walk on a greensward, almost black with rich satyrion and vanilla? And what would you think of a wealth of gentians, large and small; great yellow arnicas; beautiful Martagon lilies; and St.-Bruno lilies; of every variety of daphne; ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... our right there was a garden, trim and pleasing as the farmhouse it served. Stretched in the gateway lay a large white hound, regarding us sleepily. Beyond, on the greensward, a peacock preened himself in the hot sunshine. On the left, a wayside bank made a parapet, and a score of lime-trees a sweet balustrade. A glance between these natural balusters turned our strip of metalling into a gallery. The car, indeed, was standing upon the edge of a brae. Whether ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... Holzhausen. In the direction of Mayence, the famed Paradise Plain opens upon the Ringau; and in that of Coblentz, the dark mountains of Leyen seem to frown on the surrounding scenery. Here Nature smiles like a lovely woman extended unadorned on the greensward; there, like a slumbering giant, she excites a ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... springs known as winter-bournes in the chalk ranges, which, awakened in autumn from the abysses to which it had shrunk during the summer's drought, was hurrying down upon its six months' course, a broad sheet of oily silver over a temporary channel of smooth greensward. ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... the fresh greensward, where the summer sun was casting such pleasant shadows under the grand old trees, Mr. Curtis spoke to the horses to go on, the road winding round the lake so that except for the trees they could have seen it for half ...
— Berties Home - or, the Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie
... Head Coverings.—Upon his feet the Athenian frequently wears nothing. He goes about his home barefoot; and not seldom he enjoys the delight of running across the open greensward with his unsandaled feet pressing the springing ground; but normally when he walks abroad, he will wear SANDALS, a simple solid pair of open soles tied to his feet by leather thongs passing between the toes. For hard country walking and for hunting ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... the days are hot, and the sun is strong, I'd lounge in the gateway all the day long, With her Majesty's footmen in crimson and gold. I'd care not a pin for the waiting-lord; But I'd lie on my back on the smooth greensward With a straw in my mouth, and an open vest, And the cool wind blowing upon my breast, And I'd vacantly stare at the clear blue sky, And watch the clouds that are listless as I, Lazily, lazily! And I'd pick the moss and the daisies white, And chew their stalks with a nibbling ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... replied the speaker. "I have not undertaken a resolute and daring adventure, to resign it as a child doth his plaything, at the first frown of fortune. Please to alight, noble lady; or rather be not offended that I thus lift you from thy seat, and place you on the greensward." ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... inconvenience to his voice, so nearly did the steep pastures encroach upon the burghers' backyards. And at night it was possible to stand in the very midst of the town and hear from their native paddocks on the lower levels of greensward the mild lowing of the farmer's heifers, and the profound, warm blowings of breath in which those creatures indulge. But the community which had jammed itself in the valley thus flanked formed a veritable town, with a real mayor ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... intent upon its own business and its own desire. I was extremely fortunate, for the effect of light in the Green Park was more beautiful last Sunday than anything I had ever seen; the branches of the tall plane trees hung over the greensward, the deciduous foliage hardly stirring in the pale sunshine, and my heart went out to the ceremonious and cynical garden, artificial as eighteenth-century couplets. Wild Nature repels me; and I thought how interesting it was to consider one's self, to ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... time when spring gives place to the first advances of summer; when the trees were in leaf, and the plants in flower; when the bright greensward, enameled with its countless flowrets, carpeted the alleys of the park, Madame de Pompadour one morning begged Louis XV. to come and breakfast ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... by the side of a new-made grave. The mound, evidently covering a full-grown person, was nicely laid at the top with carefully cut sods, the dark edges of which projected a little over the lighter-colored gravel that sloped gradually down to the greensward. I was not long in becoming satisfied that the person I saw was a young widow at the grave of her husband, now three or four weeks dead, hither on her accustomed morning visit to display her love and affection for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... inclined, I could describe it building by building. Cannot one see it all from the citadel hill, and by walking down by the horticultural garden and the Roman Catholic cemetery? and did not I climb that hill through the most dilapidated rows of brown houses, and stand on the greensward of the fortress at five o'clock in the morning, and see the whole city, and the British navy riding at anchor, and the fog coming in from the Atlantic Ocean? Let the reader go to! and if he would know more of Halifax, go there. We felt that if we remained there through ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... get it. But of course I am going to do all kinds of things by and by." The truth was that this sort of life was exactly to her taste, and the wilder and rougher it was the better it suited her. She was always, to the end of her days, the pioneer woman, and the greensward of the woods went better to her feet ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... befitting, spends his long summer day whipping a trout stream without a rise or even a ripple to reward him, while a ragged urchin, with a willow wand, and a bent pin, not ten yards distant, is covering the greensward with myriads of speckled and scaly backs, from one pound weight to four; so it is in every thing—"the race is not to the swift;" the elements of success in life, whatever be the object of pursuit, are very, very different from what we think them at first sight, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... a mile or two, Lawless sustaining the whole burden of the conversation, while Oaklands never spoke a word, we came upon a piece of level greensward. ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... never relieved a poor family without visiting it, and inquiring carefully into its circumstances. Sarah was the housekeeper, and Phebe the farmer. Phebe knew nothing of kitchen matters, but she knew at what time of the year greensward should be broken up, and corn planted, and potatoes dug. She dropped Indian corn and sowed English grain with her own hands. In the time of planting or of harvest, it was Sarah who visited and ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... soldiers, who purchased of them every description of garden produce, milk, butter, and eggs at liberal prices. The figures of these rural sutlers could be seen creeping up the slopes, laden like bees, to a spot in the rear of the camp, where there was a kind of market- place on the greensward. ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... appearances. Some were occupied in stripping the skin off a buck which hung from the bough of one of the trees. Others were roasting portions of the carcass of another deer. A few sat apart, some talking, others busy in making arrows, while a few lay asleep on the greensward. As Cuthbert entered the clearing, several of the party rose to ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... heroic actions. Here were lovely green fields and pleasant groves; the air was pure and balmy, the sky was blue, and all was glowing-in the light of the blessed sun. Some of the happy spirits who dwelt in this region were amusing themselves by wrestling on the greensward, and other sports in which they had delighted on earth, such as chariot-racing, exercises with the spear and the bow. Others were dancing and singing to the delicious notes which Orpheus, the most skillful of ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... his curtains and looked across into the pleasant expanse of shrubbery and greensward. He was wondering if it would be worth while to do anything. Men and women went up and down the path, hurrying or slowly, at ease with the world—laborers, students, bonnes with market-baskets in their hands ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... carefully kept grounds, and more the look of a sweet wild wood; for the trees clustered thicker in patches, and grey rock, in large and in small quantities, was plenty about among the trees. Yet still here was care; no unsightly underbrush or rubbish of dead branches was anywhere to be seen; and the greensward, where it spread, was shaven and soft as ever. It spread on three sides around a little church, which, in green and gray, seemed almost a part of its surroundings. A little church, with a little quaint bell-tower and arched doorway, built after some ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... rows, at suitable distances apart, to allow the free use of horse, cultivator, and plow, in cultivating; thus, beets, carrots, cabbages, onions, &c., are almost as easily raised as corn. An easy method of raising good cabbages is on greensward. Put on a good dressing of manure, plow once and turn over handsomely, roll level, and harrow very mellow on the top, without disturbing the turf below; make places for planting seeds at the bottom of the turf; a ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... showed manifest traces of a schoolboy's ownership, in broken corners; plentiful ink-stains, from exercises and punishments; droppings of illicit candle grease, consumed long after curfew-time; round marks like fairy rings on a greensward, which indicated the standpoint of extinct jam pots—where are those jam pots now? But, while the outside of the book spoke thus, as it were, by innuendo and suggestion, the inside seemed to shout with joyous laughter or chuckle with irreverent mirth; or murmured, in tones lower perhaps, ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... fete—one of those bright and happy days which are shining milestones along the road of life. The peacocks strutted about on the terrace and made us laugh when they spread out their tails. We ate strawberries and cream under the elms, played all kinds of outdoor games on the greensward, and when we were tired rested in the cool, pot-pourri ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... the apple-tree! Cleave the tough greensward with the spade; Wide let its hollow bed be made; There gently lay the roots, and there Sift the dark mould with kindly care, And press it o'er them tenderly, As, round the sleeping infant's feet, We softly fold the cradle-sheet: So ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... enough of a description of the town itself. I have said that the country for miles all around was moorland; high above the level of the sea towered the purple crags, whose summits were crowned with greensward that stole down the sides of the scaur a little way in grassy veins. Here and there a brook forced its way from the heights down to the sea, making its channel into a valley more or less broad in long process of time. And in the moorland ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... of the Seventh, should the day arrive, will charge upon horrid batteries or serried ranks with as much alacrity as they marched ashore on the greensward of the Naval Academy. We disembarked, and were halted in line between the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... Ravine succeeded ravine, each with its own tiny streamlet meandering through it, and each more picturesque and enchanting than the last, until at length, emerging from this broken ground, she reached a stretch of park-like country with practically no undergrowth, the greensward being studded with magnificent umbrageous trees, some of which were a mass of lovely blossom of the most exquisite tints, while others were lavishly draped with orchids of every conceivable shape and hue. She was by this time feeling somewhat ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... first sluice, and stood as it were in a garden laid out in the English style. The broad walks are covered with gravel, and rise in short terraces between the sunlit greensward: it is charming, delightful here, but by no means imposing. If one desires to be excited in this manner, one must go a little higher up to the older sluices, which deep and narrow have burst through the hard rock. It looks magnificent, ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... onward, my head bent, my heart heavy with sorrow and worry. Twenty paces in front of me I discerned a low mound and then, horror of horrors, a huge black cross stood forth in the semi-darkness. A grave—a German grave. Some poor souls interred on my greensward; but why, since our little cemetery is but a couple of ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... the effect that no man shall wed in a country house. Indeed, if you would know the truth, it is of far better omen for the expectation of offspring that one should marry one's wife in a country house in preference to the town, on rich soil in preference to barren ground, on the greensward of the meadow rather than the pavement of the market-place. She that would be a mother should marry in the very bosom of her mother, among the standing crops, on the fruitful plough-land, or she should lie beneath the elm that weds the vine, on the very lap of mother ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... long, straggling street which comprises the village stands, close to the river banks, a low, thatched building—half house, half cottage—with a wheelwright's shop adjoining. The house stands back a little way from the road, with a patch of greensward before it, on which, in the days to which our story belongs, one might have seen a waggon or two in process of repair, and possibly have caught a glimpse of the worthy wheelwright ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... sweeping, as it does, straight across the river from the Weehawken heights, and even the ragged garden which surrounded the house, although displaying on washing days rather too much clothesline, still gave us a piece of greensward to look at, and a cool retreat in the summer evenings, where we smoked our cigars in the dusk, and watched the fireflies flashing their dark lanterns in the ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... city where the big land corporation hogged all the available feet of earth in order to stick the tenement-houses closely together. Therefore, because Mother Maillet was kind, the yard was a godsend so far as the little folks were concerned. The high fence kept children off the greensward where the canal flowed. Householders who had managed to save their yards down that way were, in most cases, fussy old people who were hanging on to the ancient cottage homes in spite of the city's growth, and they shooed the children ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... with it peace and rest to the industrious peasant, when the moon shall light her bright lamp in the star-spangled heavens, and shed her silvery rays across the plain, the hunter may lead forth the village belle, and foot it merrily on the mossy greensward, to the sound of the bagpipe and the rustic flute, by fountains which never cease their monotonous but soothing plaint, and under the long shadows of the ancient oaks and ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... and unsuccessful quest of the elusive beast. Bears seemed to have become extinct, so we took to shooting trout in a quiet little meadow stream. Having buried an arrow in the far bank, with a short run and a leap Young cleared the brook and landed on the greensward beyond. The succulent turf slipped beneath his feet and, like an acrobat, the archer turned a back somersault into the cold mountain water. Bow, clattering arrows, camera, field glasses and man, all sank beneath the limpid surface. With a shout of laughter ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... On the open greensward is a group of nymphs dancing gaily, while over all the scene is the veil of fairy-land or of something quite mysterious. At the back and side, satyrs can be seen watching the nymphs. There is here less ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... consecrated on 1841 by Bishop Griswold. The rectory was completed in 1849, and "was paid for, in large part, with money raised by the exertion of the Ladies' League." Many of us remember the attractive avenue, bordered with greensward and graceful elms, which led to the little brown church and rectory, the retirement of its situation seeming to be suited to its purpose of worship and quietness. The membership was very small at first, but in a few years it became ...
— Annals and Reminiscences of Jamaica Plain • Harriet Manning Whitcomb
... Glade, greensward, forest, aisles, and the sylvan dancing floor, bounded by garlanded and beribboned pillars, swarmed with a gay company. Torchlight painted strange high lights on silken masks, touching with subdued ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers |
