"Reft" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... What subtiltee. What newe lust, what beautee, what science, 1255 What wratthe of iuste cause have ye to me? What gilt of me, what fel experience Hath fro me raft, allas! Thyn advertence? O trust, O feyth, O depe aseuraunce, Who hath me reft ...
— Troilus and Criseyde • Geoffrey Chaucer
... shape above him, and then he set his lips, and pulled up the helm another spoke as it swung. He never quite knew what happened after that. There was a horrible crash, and the schooner appeared to be rolling over bodily. The spokes he clung to desperately reft themselves from his grasp, the deck slanted until one could not stand upon it, and something heavy struck him on the head. He dropped, and Dampier flung himself upon the wheel above his ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... glory round human life. We are now to look at him equally alone; equally majestic, shedding by martyrdom, almost a brighter glory round human death. He has hitherto been receiving the homage of almost unequalled popularity. We are now to observe him reft of every admirer, every soother, every friend. He has been hitherto overcoming the temptations of existence by entire seclusion from them all. We are now to ask how he will stem those seductions when he ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... Crown. In seizing on the control of the Church through his organized prelacy James held himself to have seized the control of the forces which acted through the Church, and to have won back that mastery of his realm which the Reformation had reft from ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... poor, for she went with me, pouring still with patient spirit Balm upon my wounded feelings, peace upon my burning soul; So that though man's love was reft me, 'twas the better to inherit That which far transcends man's favour,—sentience of ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... forbore the shout, Yet the din of steel and iron in the grey clouds rang about; But how to tell of King Volsung, and the valour of his folk! Three times the wood of battle before their edges broke; And the shield-wall, sorely dwindled and reft of the ruddy gold, Against the drift of the war-blast for the fourth time yet did hold. But men's shields were waxen heavy with the weight of shafts they bore, And the fifth time many a champion cast earthward Odin's door And gripped ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... which was always preached in the said Kirk preceding his entry thereto, which is now become a filthy stye and den of thieves; has masterfully and violently with a great force of oppression, come to the tenants indebted in payment of the said Mr George's benefice aforesaid and has masterfully reft them of all and whole the fruits thereof; and so he having no other refuge for obtaining of the said benefice, was compelled to denounce the said whole tenants rebels and put them to the horn, as the said letters and execution thereof more ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... that ranged about the throne, Clear honour shining like the dewy star Of dawn, and faith in their great King, with pure Affection, and the light of victory, And glory gained, and evermore to gain. Then came a widow crying to the King, 'A boon, Sir King! Thy father, Uther, reft From my dead lord a field with violence: For howsoe'er at first he proffered gold, Yet, for the field was pleasant in our eyes, We yielded not; and then he reft us of it Perforce, and left ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... unity, But pleasing to th' infernal empery, Under whose ensigns Wars and Discords fight, Since an even number you may disunite In two parts equal, naught in middle left To reunite each part from other reft; And five they hold in most especial prize, Since 'tis the first odd number that doth rise From the two foremost numbers' unity, That odd and even are; which are two and three; For one no number is; but thence doth flow The powerful race of number. Next, did go A noble matron, that did spinning ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... the wind will let him; but such fearsome visions I have had of late, that I ha' been just nigh 'reft o' my wits. Wilt be a queen or a queen-mother, Marian? Something spake to me after this fashion; but I was weary with watching. The spirit passed from me, and ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... unaccustomed words, tripped over his tongue to meet her. What a lovely vision she had made!—"Una donzella non con uman' volto (a gentle lady not of human look)." Well, what next? Ah, something about "Amor, che ha la mia virtu tolto (Love that has reft me of my manly will)." Then should come amore, and of course cuore, and disio, and anch' io! This was very new; it was also very strange what a fascination he found in his phrenetic exercises. Rhyme, now: he had called it often enough a jingle of endings; it were more true ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... Palinurus the steersman, who of late, while he watched the stars on their Libyan passage, had slipped from the stern and fallen amid the waves. To him, when he first knew the melancholy form in that depth of shade, he thus opens speech: 'What god, O Palinurus, reft thee from us and sank thee amid the seas? forth and tell. For in this single answer Apollo deceived me, never found false before, when he prophesied thee safety on ocean and arrival on the Ausonian coasts. ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... separate, leave. Adj. disjoined &c. v.; discontinuous &c. 70; multipartite[obs3], abstract; disjunctive; secant; isolated &c. v.; insular, separate, disparate, discrete, apart, asunder, far between, loose, free; unattached, unannexed, unassociated, unconnected; distinct; adrift; straggling; rift, reft[obs3]. [capable of being cut] scissile[Chem], divisible, discerptible[obs3], partible, separable. Adv. separately &c. adj.; one by one, severally, apart; adrift, asunder, in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... there, above, below, Their looks of wild avoidance throw! Nay, gentle cousin, blush not so! And do not, pray thee, rise to go! I am bewilder'd with my woe; But hear me fairly to the end, I will not pain thee, nor offend. O no! I would thy favour win; For, when I die, as next of kin, So 'reft am I of human ties, It is thy place to close ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... Isolda! mistress! Heart of mine! What secret dost thou hide? Without a tear thou'st quitted thy father and mother, and scarce a word of farewell to friends thou gavest; leaving home thou stood'st, how cold and still! pale and speechless on the way, food rejecting, reft of sleep, stern and wretched, wild, disturbed; how it pains me so to see thee! Friends no more we seem, being thus estranged. Make me partner in thy pain! Tell me freely all thy fears! Lady, thou hearest, sweetest and dearest; if ...
— Tristan and Isolda - Opera in Three Acts • Richard Wagner
... Vanished, the fame of memories that decrease; So strongly faith had fledged for flight from home The soul's large pinions till her strife should cease: And through the trumpet of a child of Rome Rang the pure music of the flutes of Greece. As though some northern hand Reft from the Latin land A spoil more costly than the Colchian fleece To clothe with golden sound Of old joy newly found And rapture as of penetrating peace The naked north-wind's cloudiest clime, And give its darkness light of the ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... ah happy day! Underneath a leafy spray With her sister stands my may. O sweet love! He who now is reft ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... so sharp a sword, And a knife with a golden heft: “King Sigfred be God’s grace with thee, For here thy life was reft! ...
— King Diderik - and the fight between the Lion and Dragon and other ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... ripening of the grain. Autumn corresponds entirely to the old age of the peasant that desperate, ugly old age with its bleared eyes and earthy complexion, like the ground beneath the plow; it lacks strength and goes about in beggars' garments like the earth that has been reft of the bulk of its fruits with only a few dried and yellow stalks sticking out here and there in the potato fields; the peasant is already slowly returning to the earth from whence he sprung, the earth which itself becomes dumb ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... servant, full of kingly awe And high disdaine, whenas his soveraine Dame So rudely handled by her foe he sawe, With gaping jawes full greedy at him came, And ramping on his shield, did weene the same 365 Have reft away with his sharpe rending clawes: But he was stout, and lust did now inflame His corage more, that from his griping pawes He hath his shield redeem'd, and foorth his swerd ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... and reeling prow Reft of hope, they gather now, Finding, one by one, a grave In the vexed and sullen wave. Here the child, as if in sleep, Floats on waters dark and deep; There the mother sinks below, Shrieking ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... interest in them could not be taken away, wherein we trust in regard of severall of them, called home by death, your bounty will super-adde some able men of your own that may help to lay the foundation of Gods house, according to the Pattern. But for these so unjustly reft from us, not only our necessity, but equity pleads, that either you would send them all over, which were a Work to be parallelled to the glories of the Primitive times, or at least that ye would declare them transportable, ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... whose dogmatic intolerance, put them on a level with the bigoted mediaeval ecclesiasticism which they denounce. Yet our debt to scientific men is incalculable, and our civilization of to-day would have reft from it all that which most highly distinguishes it if the work of the great masters of science during the past four centuries were now undone or forgotten. Never has philanthropy, humanitarianism, seen such development as now; and though we must all ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... treasure's reft. I know not if by force or theft, Or part by violence, part by gift; But misery is all that's ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... gone for ever. O God!" cried my father, "by what art do they thus spirit out of life the solid body? What death do they command that leaves no traces? that this material structure, these strong arms, this skeleton that can resist the grave for centuries, should be thus reft in a moment from the world of sense? A horror dwells in that thought more awful ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... time, woe worth the day, That reft us of thee, Tabitha! For we have lost, with thee, the meal, The bits, the morsels, and the deal Of gentle paste and yielding dough, That thou on widows did bestow. CHOR. All's gone, and death hath taken Away from us Our maundy; thus ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... the fellest strife, There lay in the moonlight clear The good Earl Douglas, reft of life By a ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... heave-a-ho!— Lower him to the mould below; With the well-known sailor ballad, Lest he grow more cold and pallid At the thought that Ocean's child, From his mother's arms beguiled. Must repose for countless years, Reft of all her briny tears, All the rights he owned by birth, In the dusty lap ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... True Believers, was thus keening over the folk of the house,[FN341] behold, out came a black slave therefrom and said to me, 'Hold thy peace, O Shaykh! May thy mother be reft of thee! Why do I see thee bemoaning the house in this wise?' Quoth I, 'I frequented it of yore, when it belonged to a good friend of mine.' Asked the slave, 'What was his name?'; and I answered, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... him out as the eminent literary man who was the pride of the district, and that the whole town was ringing with that magnificent effusion. Mr. Tennyson, it is certain, felt that his crown was being reft away. But, on the other hand, there is no commoner form of morbid misery than that of the poor nervous man or woman who fancies that he or she is the subject of universal unkindly remark. You will find people, still sane for practical purposes, who think that the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... healthful need not physic's art, and ye, which are all hale, Can give good counsel to the sick their sickness to eschew; But here, alas! confusion and hell doth me assail, And that all grace from me is reft, I find it to be true. My heart is steel, so that no faith can from the same ensue. I can conceive no hope at all of pardon or of grace, But out, alas! Confusion is alway before my face. And certainly, even at this[59] time, I do most ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... looking served to clear certain doubts from his heart and brain. He wanted to woo and win Helen for his wife. He was enmeshed in a net of his own contriving, and its strands were too strong to be broken. If Helen was reft from him now, he would gaze on a darkened world for ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... sympathy, a sorrow that separated the sufferer from the outer world. Never had he seen a face so beautiful, even in despair. He could have fancied it the face of Andromache, when all that made her world had been reft from her; or of Antigone, when the dread fiat had gone forth—that funeral rites or sepulture for the last accursed scion of an accursed race there were ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... to her, and Isabel's suffused, desperate face as she snatched the letter from its owner. And as a pendant picture she saw the bleak, solitary railway station in the gray December morning, where Gerard, ill and reft of his splendid strength, had waited alone for the ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... "three great, fair and goodly bags full crammed of sweet gold pieces! All my lord Duke's revenue of Winisfarne and the villages adjacent thereunto! Taxes, see ye, my lord Duke's taxes—and all stolen, reft, and ravished from me, Guido, Steward and Bailiff of the northern Marches, by clapper-claws and raveners lewd and damned! Woe's me for my ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... in this same moment he Is as softly moved—"no rose Would he pluck before the storm Reft it ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... style, would have shared the same fate, had it not been for an angel of a young woman, daughter of the gentleman of the house. This charming girl was engaged to be married to Crookshanks. Waked by the firing and horrid din of battle in the piazza, she was at first almost 'reft of her senses by the fright. But the moment she heard her lover's voice, all her terrors vanished, and instead of hiding herself under the bedclothes, she rushed into the piazza amidst the mortal ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... Risingham," she cried, "hear me, in justice. I am here in this man's custody by mere force, reft from mine own people. Since that day I had never pity, countenance, nor comfort from the face of man—but from him only—Richard Shelton—whom they now accuse and labour to undo. My lord, if he was yesternight in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... imagined her an injured beauty, reft from her faithful adorer by her stern aunt or duenna, and that he considered himself to be doing her a kindness by keeping her informed of her hero's vicinity, while he denied it to her companion; but she scorned to enter into an explanation, or make any disavowal, and found the ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... from Gylfi, Rich in stored up treasure, The land she joined to Denmark. Four heads and eight eyes bearing, While hot sweat trickled down them, The oxen dragged the reft mass That formed ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... while pit and gallery cry "Hats off!" And awed consumption checks his chided cough, Some giggling daughter of the Queen of Love Drops, reft of pin, her playbill from above; Like Icarus, while laughing galleries clap, Soars, ducks, and dives in air the printed scrap; But, wiser far than he, combustion fears; And, as it flies, eludes the chandeliers; ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... the mind shall be all free, From what it hates in this degraded form, Reft of its carnal life, save what shall be Existent happier in the fly or worm; When elements to elements conform, And dust ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... other, the more alert quickening the drowsy; the world from which our bodies were shut out became the playground of our fancy, which reveled there in frolicsome adventure. The very Lives of the Saints helped us to understand what was so carefully left unsaid! But the day when I was reft of your sweet company, I became a true Carmelite, such as they appeared to us, a modern Danaid, who, instead of trying to fill a bottomless barrel, draws every day, from Heaven knows what deep, an empty pitcher, thinking to ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... greater detail an account of the afternoon's proceedings. But he listened only for the opening of the door. From that instant war should be declared, ruthless war on each and every person present who had reft him ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... could at other times go by sea; but now that the Spaniards are seeking to win back the rock of Gibraltar, which we have lately reft from them, and which Marlborough says must never be yielded up again, we cannot safely try that way; for we might well fall into the hands of some Spanish vessel, and languish, unknown and uncared for, in Spanish dungeons. We cannot travel through France, and reach it from the shores ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Flores is a man so ample In every complement of entertainement, That guests with him are, as in Bowers enchanted, Reft of all power and ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... tone, Hurl'd on that glorious man, whose pious labours Shield from every ill his grateful country! That man, whom friends to adoration love, And enemies revere.—Yes, M'Donald, Even in the presence of the first of men Did I abjure the service of my country, And reft my helmet of that glorious badge Which graces even the brow of Washington. How shall ...
— Andre • William Dunlap
... is thy soul like mountain tide, That, swelled by winter storm and shower, Rolls down in turbulence of power, A torrent fierce and wide; Reft of these aids, a rill obscure, Shrinking unnoticed, mean and poor, Whose channel shows displayed The wrecks of its impetuous course, But not one symptom of the force By ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Of nectar and ambrosia—what the throne Of high Olympus—what the power I own, The golden sceptre of the starry skies— What the omnipotence that never dies, What might eternal, immortality— What e'en a god, oh love, if reft of thee? The shepherd who, beside the murmuring brooks, Leans on his true love's breast, nor cares to look After his straying lambs, in that sweet hour Envies me not my thunderbolt of power! She comes—she ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... watch I keep, Dear heart that wak'st though senses sleep To thee my heart turns gratefully. All it can give to thee is given. From all besides, its heartstrings riven. Could ne'er be reft more fatefully. ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... still vse of greefe, makes wilde greefe tame, My tongue should to thy eares not name my Boyes, Till that my Nayles were anchor'd in thine eyes: And I in such a desp'rate Bay of death, Like a poore Barke, of sailes and tackling reft, Rush all to peeces ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... as the rudder went hard over, the "Bertha Millner" fretted and danced and shook her sails, calling impatiently for the wind, chafing at its absence like a child reft of a toy. Then again she scooped the nor'wester in the hollow palms of her tense canvases and settled quietly down on the new tack, her bowsprit ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... Grendel's attack with terror of blades. Then was this mead-house at morning tide dyed with gore, when the daylight broke, all the boards of the benches blood-besprinkled, gory the hall: I had heroes the less, doughty dear-ones that death had reft. — But sit to the banquet, unbind thy words, hardy hero, as heart ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... deed and thought, take pleasure in envy and malice. And, O sinless one, the earth then becometh full of sin and immorality. And, O lord of the earth, he that becometh virtuous at such periods doth not live long. Indeed, the earth becometh reft of virtue in every shape. And, O tiger among men, the merchants and traders then full of guile, sell large quantities of articles with false weights and measures. And they that are virtuous do not prosper; while they that are sinful proper exceedingly. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... was. I had seen the Russian ballet just before the war, and one of the men in it reminded me of this man. But the dancing was the least part of it. It was neither sound nor movement nor scent that wrought the spell, but something far more potent. In an instant I found myself reft away from the present with its dull dangers, and looking at a world all young and fresh and beautiful. The gaudy drop-scene had vanished. It was a window I was looking from, and I was gazing at the finest landscape on earth, lit by the ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... performances. There was also a school of defence, or fencing school, here in Queen Elizabeth's time; so many a hot Tybalt and fiery Mercutio have here crossed rapiers, and many a silk button has been reft from gay doublets by the quick passadoes of the young swordsmen who ruffled it in the Strand. This quondam inn was also the place where Banks, the showman (so often mentioned by Nash and others in Elizabethan pamphlets and lampoons), exhibited his wonderful trained horse "Marocco," the animal ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... me there shone no star that did not pale, No cheering hope of which I was not reft; To the world's whim, changing with every gale, And all its vain caprices, I was left; To nobler art my aspirations soared, Yet I must sink them to ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... 70; multipartite^, abstract; disjunctive; secant; isolated &c v.; insular, separate, disparate, discrete, apart, asunder, far between, loose, free; unattached, unannexed, unassociated, unconnected; distinct; adrift; straggling; rift, reft^. [capable of being cut] scissile [Chem], divisible, discerptible^, partible, separable. Adv. separately &c adj.; one by one, severally, apart; adrift, asunder, in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was stretched the Eurasian girl, Zarmi. Her picturesque finery was reft into tatters and her bare throat and arms were covered with weals and bruises occasioned by ruthless, clutching fingers. Of her face, which had been notable for a sort of devilish beauty, I cannot write; it was the awful face of one ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... blade cleaves to the teeth, And dead the Kalif falls.—"Pagan accursed," He cries, "not here shalt thou say Carle lost aught; To wife nor lady shalt thou ever boast In thine own land, that thou hast reft from Carle One denier's worth, or me or others harmed!" And then he called Rolland unto his ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... "Reft of thy sons, amid thy foes forlorn, Mourn, widowed Queen, forgotten Sion, mourn! Is this thy place, sad city, this thy throne, Where the wild desert rears its craggy stone, While suns unbless'd their angry lustre fling, And wayworn pilgrims seek the ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... Through this remoter Lorn I went, less conscious of cruelty than when I plied fire and sword with legitimate men of war, for ever in my mind was the picture of real Argile, scorched to the vitals with the invading flame, and a burgh town I cherished reft of its people, and a girl with a child at her neck flying and sobbing ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... some fragments of the ancient Catholic families of Ireland; but, alas! what VERY fragments! They linger like the remnants of her aboriginal forests, reft indeed of their strength and greatness, but proud even in decay. Every winter thins their ranks, and strews the ground with the wreck of their loftiest branches; they are at best but tolerated in the land which gave them birth—objects of curiosity, perhaps of pity, ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... his great work. Without Mazzini, when would the Italians have got beyond the fallacies of federal republics, leagues of princes, provincial autonomy, insular home-rule, and all the other dreams of independence reft of its only safeguard which possessed the minds of patriots of every party in Italy and of nearly every well-wisher to ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... eloquent Demosthenes, Who taught their youth beneath the trees; Here with sharp eyes we love to scan The rules that point Dame Nature's plan, We mark the track of bear and deer, And long to see them reft of fear.— Though well they shun our changeful moods, Taught by our rifle in the woods. Yet we may tell of mercy shown, Power unabused, the birdling flown,— When caught by thistly gossamer— Set free to wing the ambient air. Cautious ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... town, and many necessaries may be had for the asking. Persuaded by these arguments, I went to this place, and I was not altogether deceived, seeing that I recovered my health, and the son—who was to be reft from me later on by the Senate—was born ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... grove, The lily chaste, the rose that breathes of love, The myrtle leaf, and Laura's hallow'd bay, The deathless flowers that bloom o'er Sappho's clay; For thee, Callirhoe! yet by love and years, I learn how fancy wakes from joy to tears; How memory, pensive, 'reft of hope, attends The exile's path, and bids him fear new friends. Long may the garland blend its varying hue With thy bright tresses, and bud ever new With all spring's odours; with spring's light be drest, Inhale pure fragrance from thy virgin breast! ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 - Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 • Various
... all self-consciousness—was reft from him and he stood quite still, the blood burning his face, a strange sensation contracting ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... the duke as his dearest friend; but when Richard III. offered L1000 reward to any one who would deliver up the duke, Banastar betrayed him to John Mitton, sheriff of Shropshire, and he was conveyed to Salisbury, where he was beheaded. The ghost of the duke prayed that Banastar's eldest son, "reft of his wits might end his life in a pigstye;" that his second son might "be drowned in a dyke" containing less than "half a foot of water;" that his only daughter might be a leper; and that Banastar himself might "live in death and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... themselves to be self-acting, when in fact they are the merest shuttlecocks bandied about between the battledores of knavish devils on one side, and devilish knaves upon the other, and between the two the poor fallen wretches are nearly heart-reft and destroyed." ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... where late she played, Setting a steady course toward the light, Swifter than thistledown the little shade, Reft from the nooks that she had made her own And from the love that sheltered, fared alone Forth through the gloomy spaces of the night, Until at last she lit before the gate Where all the suppliant ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... Scotland, and in Edinburgh principallie, thought that thei could do no wrong to no Scottishe man; for a certane French man delivred a coulvering to George Tod, Scottisman, to be stocked, who bringing it throwght the streat, ane other French man clamed it, and wold have reft it from the said George; but he resisted, alledgeing that the Frenche man did wronge. And so begane parties to assemble, asweall to the Scottishman, as to the French; so that two of the French men war stryckin doune, and the rest chassed from the Croce to Nudrye's Wynd ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... Reft of a carriage, life is poor: A well-conducted set Needs ready money to procure Their butler and Debrett. The country totters to its fall, Disgraced to all intents, Unless you instantly recall ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various
... stood, And, as a man awaking from a dream, Seemed waked from his old folly; nought seemed good In all the things that he before had deemed At least worth life, and on his heart there streamed Cold light of day—he found himself alone, Reft of desire, all love ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... with anguish cleft, Revere the doom of heaven. Her soul is from her body reft; Her spirit ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... the West. Just as severely shaken is their belief in its moral superiority, even with many whose loyalty to the British cause never wavered during the Great War and who still pride themselves on India's share in its final victory, when they see how the world of Western civilisation has been reft asunder by four years of frightful conflict which drenched all Europe with blood and left half of it at least plunged in black ruin. We have preached to Indians, not untruly, but with an insistence that seems to them now more ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... night when his spirit was by treachery and violence reft from his body, there was no rest for ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... thee oft; and cushions soft Those patches somewhat screen; Still, thy poor arms—reft of paint's charms Are scarce fit ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... with the people who used it. Roman roads indeed still led to desolate cities. Roman camps still crowned hill and down. The old divisions of the land remained to furnish bounds of field and farm for the new settlers. The Roman church, the Roman country-house, was left standing, though reft of priest and lord. But Rome was gone. The mosaics, the coins which we dig up in our fields are no relics of our English fathers, but of a world which our fathers' sword swept utterly away. Its law, its literature, its manners, its ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... he went And prayed him be his tale's interpreter. And yet upon the heaven his eyes he bent, Hearing the marvel; yet he sought for her That was a wanting, in the hope her face Once more might fill its reft abiding-place. ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... falls in with the 'elfin grey' who might have been an 'earthly knight'; and he tells her how, as a youth, he had been reft away ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... truth of her, These hands shall tear her; if they wrong her honour, The proudest of them shall well hear of it. Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine, Nor age so eat up my invention, Nor fortune made such havoc of my means, Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends, But they shall find, awak'd in such a kind, Both strength of limb, and policy of mind, Ability in means, and choice of friends, To ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... twin rocks that guard the Colchian sea, II 1 Bosporian cliffs 'fore Salmydessus rise, Where neighbouring Ares from his shrine beheld Phineus' two sons[6] by female fury quelled. With cursed wounding of their sight-reft eyes, That cried to Heaven to 'venge the iniquity. The shuttle's sharpness in a cruel hand Dealt the dire blow, not struck ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... the fond recollections of former years; And shadows of things that have long since fled Flit over the brain, like the ghosts of the dead,— Bright visions of glory that vanished too soon; Day-dreams, that departed ere manhood's noon; Attachments by fate or falsehood reft; Companions of early days lost or left; And my native land, whose magical name Thrills to the heart like electric flame; The home of my childhood; the haunts of my prime; All the passions and scenes of that rapturous time When the feelings were young, and the world was new, Like ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... she up, And slowly, slowly left him, And, sighing, said she could not stay, Since death of life had reft him. ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... shrilly that even Slivers started. She was pointing stiffly. The men all stared at the storm of dust. For one brief second the swirling clouds were reft, revealing, far out eastward, in the dead-land of white, a small dark object—the form of ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... Completed, from all hindrance free. Thither will I my journey make: Rama, my child, thou must not take. A boy unskilled, he knows not yet The bounds to strength and weakness set. No match is he for demon foes Who magic arts to arms oppose. O chief of saints, I have no power, Of Rama reft, to live one hour: Mine aged heart at once would break: Rama, my child, thou must not take. Nine thousand circling years have fled With all their seasons o'er my head, And as a hard-won boon, O sage, These sons have come to cheer mine age. My dearest love amid the four ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... shall be to thee a token Of a fond heart reft and broken; And the month of joy and gladness Shall fill thy soul with holy sadness, And thou ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... business. Funds had to be collected to buy instruments. Musicians who could play the instruments had to be picked out from among the men, and nobody knew how to find them. Hardly anybody stayed long in these base camps, and a good musician might at any moment be reft away and sent ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... beastly, Billy, you can picture something worse— There's the wrecking of an empire, and its broken people's curse; There are nations reft of freedom, and of hope and kindly mirth, And the shadow of an evil black upon the ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... to flatter, left of all his store! No fool to laugh at, which he valued more. There reft of health, of fortune, friends, And fame, this lord of ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... avid greed Of pirate fathers, smocked as Grace, Sent Judas missioners to read Christ's Word to many a feebler race — False priests of Truth who made their tryst At Mammon's shrine, and reft or slew — Some hands you taught to pray to Christ Have prayed His curse ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... hideous deed?" So saying he showed him the two papers written in the handwriting and sealed with the seal of the accused who, when he looked upon them, trembled in every limb, and his tongue was knotted for a while, nor could he find power to speak a word, and he was reft of all his reason and of his knowledge. Wherefor he bowed his brow groundwards and held his peace. But when the King beheld this his condition, he bade them slay him by smiting his neck without the city, and Nadan cried aloud, "O Haykar, O blackavice, what could have profited ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... the third part of Gallia as Gal. Mon. saith.] After that Leir was fallen into age, the two dukes that had married his two eldest daughters, thinking it long yer the gouernment of the land did come to their hands, arose against him in armour, and reft from him the gouernance of the land, vpon conditions to be continued for terme of life: by the which he was put to his portion, that is, to liue after a rate assigned to him for the maintenance of his estate, which in processe of time was diminished as well by Maglanus ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (2 of 8) - The Second Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed
... on us even like his brother Death— We know not when it comes—we know it must come— We may affect to scorn and to contemn it, For 'tis the highest pride of human misery To say it knows not of an opiate; Yet the reft parent, the despairing lover, Even the poor wretch who waits for execution, Feels this oblivion, against which he thought His woes had arm'd his senses, steal upon him, And through the fenceless citadel—the body— Surprise that haughty ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... bottles indicate the activity of the enterprise. Then you saw the dining rooms of the Saint Sycophant and the Cosmopolitan Hotels. Here flew the resounding cork, to be instantly snatched up by the attendant Ethiopian, and scarcely were the champagne flasks emptied before they were reft from the tables with unimpaired labels. At the rear doors, there seemed to wait handcarts, and soon in these the corks, the bottles, and the baskets were carefully bestowed for their down-town journey, and money appeared to pass from hand to hand. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... fault is forgiven, but not forgotten; you shall indeed bear a son, who shall be brave and good, yet will he cause you to weep tears as bitter as those my mother wept for me. So! take this grain of rice; eat it, and you shall bear a son that will be no son to you, for even as I was reft from my mother's eyes, so will he be reft from yours. Go in peace; your fault is forgiven, but ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... his love for Greane, but greater far His love for Agathar Born of his pain, A strange dependence tinged pathetically The proud possession of his trust as guard Of her reft life and lonely widowhood. He waited for her coming in the morn With flowers he had gathered ere she woke; At night he led her to her chamber door, With boyish homage touched with stately grace, And ...
— Under King Constantine • Katrina Trask
... feet will turn to desert places Shadowless, reft of rain and dew, Where stars stare down with sharpened ...
— Rivers to the Sea • Sara Teasdale
... driven wild by the blows, returned them with their hunting-crops and walking-canes. And then, as half the crowd strained to the left and half to the right to avoid the pressure from behind, the vast mass was suddenly reft in twain, and through the gap surged the rough fellows from behind, all armed with loaded sticks and yelling for "Fair play and Gloucester!" Their determined rush carried the prize-fighters before ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in ower blodletunge{;} [&] halde ow i swuch reste{;} [/] [gh]e longe reft{er} mahen i godes seruise e monluker swinken {110} ant alswa hwen [gh]e fele eani secnesse. Muchel sotschipe hit is leosen for an dei{;} tene oer tweolue. Vessche ow hwer{}se neod is as ...
— Selections from early Middle English, 1130-1250 - Part I: Texts • Various
... my limbs grow old and weary, Trembling in the wintry air; And my life be dark and dreary— Still I feel that thou art near; Stripped of all my blossoms golden, 'Reft of stalwart forest pride— Sere and sallow, leafless, olden; Yet remain'st thou by my side. Time wings on: my strength is fleeing, And my leafy beauties too; Life-long cling'st thou round ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... first because her flowers had been spilled, and then because she was being reft away. She cried out to her mother, and her cry went over high mountains and sounded up from the sea. The daughters of Ocean, affrighted, fled and sank down into the ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... the Kirta is said to set in" (ibid., p. 228). "The King must be skilful in smiting" (ibid., p. 174). "Fierceness and ambition are the qualities of the King" (ibid., p. 59). "The King who is mild is regarded as the worst of his kind, like an elephant that is reft of fierceness" (ibid., p. 171). Indeed, failure to treat subjects with rigour is visited with penalties as tremendous as failure to protect them. "They forget their own position and most truly transcend it. They disclose the secret counsels ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... still midnight—hark'—that startling sound Tells of deed of blood! a soldier's hand With aim too true himself hath reft of life! * * * Beneath that roof For many days none had heard sounds of gladness. He was distressed—each fond retainer then Softened his voice to whispers—each pale face Did but reflect the sadness fixed in his: Save ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various |
