"Erst" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had lost its wilfulness, the proud expression of lip had altered to one of thought and sadness, and her eyes had become softer and more melancholy. She leaned against the tree where the curate had brought her the first tidings of Arthur's marriage, and she sighed, but not as erst with jealousy ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was struck with a plain slab, bearing the inscription, "To the memory of Deacon Enos Dudley, who died in his hundredth year." My eye was caught by this inscription, for in other years I had well known the person it recorded. At this instant, his mild and venerable form arose before me as erst it used to rise from the deacon's seat, a straight, close slip just below the pulpit. I recollect his quiet and lowly coming into meeting, precisely ten minutes before the time, every Sunday,—his tall form ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... we stand— Woundless and well, may Heaven's high name be bless'd for't! As erst, ere treason couch'd a lance against ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... big man smiling no whit more than erst, "and that will make the fourth time. Depart then, fair sir, and take this word with thee that I wish thee ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... cups, nor rich my cheer, This Sabine wine, which erst I seal'd, That day the applauding theatre Your welcome peal'd, Dear knight Maecenas! as 'twere fain That your paternal river's banks, And Vatican, in sportive strain, Should echo thanks. For you Calenian grapes are press'd, And ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... quite undoubted is that she has concealed herself so effectually from my researches, that I might as well look for justice and clemency in the French Convention, as for this former friend in the plains and lanes of Chesington where, erst, she met me whether I ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... are still in the soft Shakespearean mood, comes "Twelfth Night"—traditionally devoted to dismantling the Christmas Tree; and indeed there is no task so replete with luxurious and gentle melancholy. For by that time the toys which erst were so splendid are battered and bashed; the cornucopias empty of candy (save one or two striped sticky shards of peppermint which elude the thrusting index, and will be found again next December); ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... Never in her life before had Olympia condescended to rest her gaze upon the faces of those who served her; to-night she could not resist an inclination to glance for one moment at their countenances. As she looked athwart those features, erst so submissive and so reverent, she saw significant smirks, and an expression of disdain for which she could have felled them to ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... search! But see! One ancient institution Still doing business at the same old stand; 'Tis Messrs. Barclay's Bank, or I'm a Proossian, That erst dispensed my slender cash-in-hand; I'll borrow of their pelf And buy some War Loan ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... who didst all-triumphant guide a yet greater than Quirinus to deeds of might and glory; thou, who wert worshipped by the charging shout of Marius, and consecrated by the gore of Cimbric myriads; thou, who wert erst enshrined on the Capitoline, what time the proud patricians veiled their haughty crests before the conquering plebeian; thou, who shalt sit again sublime upon those ramparts, meet aery for thine unvanquished pinion; shalt drink ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... together drew From Jauncey Court and New Street Alley, As erst, if pastorals be true, Came beasts from every wooded valley; The random passers stayed to list,— A boxer AEgon, rough and merry, A Broadway Daphnis, on his tryst With ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... in the passing of a day Of mortal life the leaf, the bud, the flower; Ne more doth flourish after first decay, That erst was sought to deck both bed and bower Of many a lady and many a paramour! Gather therefore the rose 'whilst yet is prime, For soon comes age that will her pride deflower; Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time, Whilst loving thou mayst loved ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... 4 Religion, erst so venerable, What art thou now but made a fable, A holy mask on folly's brow, Where under lies Dissimulation, Lined with all abomination. Sacred Religion, where ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... mourn! low lies thine humbled state, Thy glittering fanes are level'd with the ground! Fallen is thy pride!—Thine halls are desolate! Where erst was heard the timbrels' sprightly sound, And frolic pleasures tripp'd the nightly round, There breeds the wild fox lonely,—and aghast Stands the mute pilgrim at the void profound, Unbroke by noise, save ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... she pores over the family Bible. He will meet her at the gates of death with a wonderful smile of love; and, as she walks upon the heavenly Jordan's shining waters, hand in hand with Him, she will see her erst-wrinkled face reflected from them in angelic beauty. Ah, but to tackle a Johann Wolfgang Goethe or a Gotthold Ephraim Lessing—what an ordeal for the celestial Professor of Apologetics! Perhaps that's what the Gospel means—only by becoming little children can we enter the kingdom ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... whose waters erst were freighted With swimmer bold, who with thy billows fought! I know thee, too, thou vale where oft we plighted Eternal faith! Alas! earth holds it not! Ye birchen trees, whose bark I carved delighted With many ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... strength. History returns to the people. After two thousand years, popular intelligence is again to be revived. And under what new conditions? We live in a telescopic, microscopic, telegraphic universe, all the elements of which are brought together under the combined operation of fire and water, as erst, in primitive Nature, vulcanic and plutonic forces struggled together in the face of heaven and hell to form the earth. The long ranges of history have left with us one definite idea: it is that of progress, the intellectual passion of our time. All our science demonstrates ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... thou Achilles train'st, And new sworn soldiers' maiden arms retain'st, We, Macer, sit in Venus' slothful shade, And tender love hath great things hateful made. Often at length, my wench depart I bid, She in my lap sits still as erst she did. I said, "It irks me:" half to weeping framed, "Ay me!" she cries, "to love why art ashamed?" Then wreathes about my neck her winding arms, And thousand kisses gives, that work my harms: 10 I yield, and back my wit from battles bring, Domestic acts, and mine own wars ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... made up of nothing but precious stones and gold; Were all the world bought from it, and down the value told, Not a mark the less thereafter were left than erst was scor'd. Good reason sure had Hagen to covet ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... the moonlight air with its balmy essence, that the budding leaves trembled to its accents. Would I might have heard it once more whisper peace and hope (as erst when it was mingled with the breath of spring), and with its soft pulsations lift winged fancy to heaven. But it has ceased, or turned where I no more shall hear it!—Hence, also, we see what is the charm of the shepherd's ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... of his patience. Then he arose and sitting down on the king's throne, donned the royal dress and dispensed justice and equity, and affairs prospered; wherefore the lieges obeyed him and the subjects inclined to him and many were his soldiers. Now the king, who erst had plundered Abu Sabir's goods and driven him forth of his village, had an enemy; and the foe mounted horse against him and overcame him and captured his capital; wherefore he betook him to flight and came to Abu Sabir's city, craving support of him and seeking that ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... bear ye Earth's thanks to God; For Oh! what waters, slaking every thirst Of heart, mind, spirit, in long cascades burst From Plymouth Rock, when struck by Freedom's rod! No wanderer in the burning sand, unshod, Plods man with lolling tongue, dog-like, as erst; For lo! this fountain, deepening from the first, Floods Earth's old wells and ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... shall we endure The shame and infamy of this new yoke, And from the vassal brook what never king Dared in the fulness of his power attempt? This soil we have created for ourselves, By the hard labor of our hands; we've changed The giant forest, that was erst the haunt Of savage bears, into a home for man; Extirpated the dragon's brood, that wont To rise, distent with venom, from the swamps; Rent the thick misty canopy that hung Its blighting vapors on the dreary waste; Blasted the solid rock; o'er the abyss Thrown ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Erst, they're short. Then they breathe in their mystical tone An essence, a spirit, a draught which alone Can content Billy's lust, for the weird and unknown (Billy's out of his depth) they've an undefined sense Of the infinite 'mersed ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... the ballad of Boh Da Thone, Erst a Pretender to Theebaw's throne, Who harried the district of Alalone: How he met with ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... that rule of faith, where Thou hadst showed me unto her in a vision, so many years before. And Thou didst convert her mourning into joy, much more plentiful than she had desired, and in a much more precious and purer way than she erst required, by having grandchildren of ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... as grand, The wealth of wealth embarrasses; And yet this is not elfinland But great AUGUSTUS HARRIS's. The blase children vote it flat, When Mister Clown cries, "Here's a go!" Yes, there's the box where erst we sat And ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... Kinder erst, und den de vimmen— Shood dem ub vile dey is schwimmen, Den you gif der men a trimmen, Kaiser Bill. For der voorit must pe mine own, So I'll pe der King alone, Mit ...
— Rhymes of the Rookies • W. E. Christian
... every Muse and Grace auspicious wait, As erst thy Handmaids, when, with brow serene, Gay thou didst rove where Buxton views elate A golden ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... be flung by sacrilegious hands to the sunshine and the wind. And if ye all from ills so dire ask how yourselves to free, Or such at least as would not hold your lives unworthily, No better counsel can I urge, than that which erst inspired The stout Phocaeans when from their doomed city they retired, Their fields, their household gods, their shrines surrendering as a prey To the wild boar and the ravening wolf; [1] so we, in our dismay, Where'er ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... dost thou work. But a few years have passed, and Mosby, who was erst so malignant a rebel, that even the poor, but loyal, prisoners, presented him the cold shoulder, is now a confidential friend of the late Commander in chief of the Union Army! Longstreet, the rebel General, again swears by the ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... make towards the tree, which has erst served others than themselves as a guide to the crossing-place, the nature of the ground hinders their going at great speed. Being soft and somewhat boggy, they are compelled to creep ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... —Gracious powers! which erst have opened the lips of the dumb in his distress, and made the tongue of the stammerer speak plain—when I shall arrive at this dreaded page, deal not with me, ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... a voice is heard after the sudden departure of Virgil. "Dante" it says "though Virgil leave thee, weep not, weep not yet, for thou must weep for a greater wound. I beheld that Lady who had erst appeared to me under a cloud of flowers cast by angel's hands: and she was gazing at me across the stream ... 'Look at us well. We are, indeed Beatrice. Hast thou then condescended to come to the mountain?' (the mountain of discipline)—Shame weighed down my brow. The ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... "You read only at the museum now?" I asked, with attempted cheerfulness. He said he never went there now. "No absinthe there," he muttered. It was the sort of thing that in old days he would have said for effect; but it carried conviction now. Absinthe, erst but a point in the "personality" he had striven so hard to build up, was solace and necessity now. He no longer called it "la sorciere glauque." He had shed away all his French phrases. He had become a plain, unvarnished ...
— Enoch Soames - A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties • Max Beerbohm
... practical necessities, they renounced the traditions of the classical past, which now seemed to belong to another hemisphere, abandoned the attempt to realize pure forms, postponed high art; melody gave way to prose, the romance degenerated into the novel, and prose fiction, which erst had flitted only between the tongue and ear, entered, a straggling and reeling constellation, into the firmament of literature. Hence the novel is the child of human impotency and despair. The race thereby, with ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... I sat at window whence I sought the spot where erst had stood A cord—a cord of hick'ry wood, Piled up against the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... the aire and azure skie All swept away from Saturn to the Sunne, Which each is to be wrought by him on high. Then in this place let all the Planets runne (As erst they did before this feat was done) If not by nature, yet by divine power, Ne one hairs breadth their former circuits shun And still for fuller proof, th' Astronomer Observe their hights as in ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... is often so when maidens change and grow pale and dreamy, and sit brooding and thinking when erst they laughed and played. Kate is double the woman she was six months gone by. She will sit patiently at her needle now, when once she would throw it aside after one short hour; and she will seek to learn all manner of things in the still room and pantry that she made light of a short ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... knuckles for leave) entered to Mr. Wilding from a door of communication between his private counting-house and that in which his clerks sat, the Head Cellarman of the cellars of Wilding and Co., Wine Merchants, and erst Head Cellarman of the cellars of Pebbleson Nephew. The Joey Ladle in question. A slow and ponderous man, of the drayman order of human architecture, dressed in a corrugated suit and bibbed apron, apparently a composite of door-mat ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... they their hands and took up the barley meal. Then Chryses lifted up his hands and prayed aloud for them: "Hearken to me, god of the silver bow that standest over Chryse and holy Killa, and rulest Tenedos with might; even as erst thou heardest my prayer, and didst me honour, and mightily afflictest the people of the Achaians, even so now fulfil me this my desire: remove thou from the Danaans forthwith ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... o'er the bounding main! Shake all your white wings to the breeze! My joy was erst the hurricane, The plunging of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... heart within the peer beat true to nature still, For on his vision oft would rise the cottage on the hill; And young companions, long forgot, would join him in the game, As erst in life's young morning, around ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... century; if mine host presided with somewhat less of state than might have befitted a successor of the royal governors; if the guests made a less imposing show than the bewigged and powdered and embroidered dignitaries who erst banqueted at the gubernatorial table and now sleep within their armorial tombs on Copp's Hill or round King's Chapel,—yet never, I may boldly say, did a more comfortable little party assemble in the province-house from Queen Anne's days to the Revolution. The occasion was rendered ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... aloof Extolled Eurypylus the fierce and strong, As erst they had praised Hector, when he smote Their foes, defending Troy and all her wealth. But when sweet sleep stole over mortal men, Then sons of Troy and battle-biding Greeks ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... point with his thumb and finger, and twists it till it is like a ram's horn. Then he gives it back to John and says: "Thy knife is now stranger than it was, John, but 'tis not of so much use as erst." All marvelled at this feat, all save the fool Surly John, who raises a great outcry that his knife is marred. But Hardcastle, whose head was now pretty much filled with drink, cried out: "Hold thy peace, John; doubtless ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... my mountain home, The paths where erst I used to roam, The thundering torrent lost in foam. The snow-hill side all bathed in light,— All, all are bursting on ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... a lake, whereon there float The balls that erst would o'er it fly; We can't play tennis from a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various
... dungeon[76] there runs of narrow space. Dreadful and dark, where never light is found: Into this hollow cave, by cruel hest Of King Tancred, were divers servants sent To work the horror of his furious breast, Erst nourish'd in his rage, and now stern bent To have the same perform'd. I woful man, Amongst the rest, was one to do the thing. That to our charge so straitly did belong, In sort as was commanded by ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... swift, confirming swoon. Up through the gates they bore her Christalan, Dressed in the garments of the neophyte, That erst were spotless white, but then were soiled, Bedraggled and dust-stained. His golden hair A matted mass, of sunny curls unkempt,— And yet how beautiful he was withal! Into the hall they brought and laid him down, While Agathar gave thanks, from her despair, That ...
— Under King Constantine • Katrina Trask
... as erst he had been shaken The night before, but being sick of shaking, He first inclined to think he had been mistaken, And then to be ashamed of such mistaking. His own internal ghost began to awaken Within him and to quell his corporal ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... people. And if thou wilt not do so, thou shalt receive worse, for the emperor will come here, as king shall to his own, king most keen; and take thee with strength, lead thee bound before Rome-folk;—then must thou suffer what thou erst despisedest!" ...
— Brut • Layamon
... fruitful brain, By odd obstetrics freed from pain, Bore Pallas,[13] erst my mortal foe,[14] Pray listen to my tale of woe. This Progne[15] takes my lawful prey. As through the air she cuts her way, And skims the waves in seeming play. My flies she catches from my door,— 'Yes, mine—I emphasize the word,— ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... in even's parting beams, From his red trunk reflects a ruddier ray; While, flickering through the lengthen'd shadow, gleams Of gold athwart the dusky branches play. The jackdaws, erst so bustling on the tower, Have ceased their cawing clamour from on high; And the brown bat, as nears the twilight hour, Circles—the lonely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... the past and the future, would the early Christians have cursed Nature herself. So utterly did they condemn her, as to find the Devil incarnate in a flower. Swiftly may the angels come again, who erst overwhelmed the cities of the Dead Sea! Oh, that they may sweep off, may crumple up as a veil the hollow frame of this world; may at length deliver the ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... certain land there once did dwell (How long ago it needs not I should tell) At the king's court a great astrologer, Ev'n such as erst was I, but mightier And far excelling; and it came to pass That he fell sick; and very old he was; And knowing that his end was nigh, he said To him that sat in sorrow by his bed, 'O master well-beloved and matchless king, Take thou and keep this lowly offering ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... Prince with long swift strides, in the light of the sinking sun, walked up the low hill, the same where erst the pious AEneas climbed with his faithful Achates following. From the brow the Trojan prince had beheld the rising city in the valley—the English prince came on its desolation. Yet nature had made the vale lovely—green with well-watered verdure, fields of beauteous green maize, graceful date ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Nature, ever buoyant, ever young, If let alone, will sing as erst she sung; The course of circumstance gives back again The Picturesque, erewhile pursued in vain; Shows us the fount of Romance is not wasted,— The lights and ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... likely to have alarmed the sailor, he was about to turn off, but only to start the next minute, and stand clinging with both hands to the rail, for some fifteen or twenty yards away the erst calm, heaving sea began to be violently agitated, running as it were with the swiftness of a mill-stream; and then something dull and glistening and shining like a halo appeared just beneath the surface, rising till it was ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... strings has spanned! I touch the chords of joy, but low And mournful answer notes of woe; 125 And the proud march, which victors tread, Sinks in the wailing for the dead. O well for me, if mine alone That dirge's deep prophetic tone! If, as my tuneful fathers said, 130 This harp, which erst Saint Modan swayed, Can thus its master's fate foretell, Then welcome be the ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... sumptuous golden blaze Wraps earth in a voluptuous haze Of lambent splendor; where the skies Drop balm as erst in Paradise, ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... I endure no words can tell, Far greater these, than those which erst befel From the dire terror of thy consort, Jove; E'en stern Eurystheus' dire command above; This of thy daughter, OEneus, is the fruit, Beguiling me with her envenom'd suit, Whose close embrace ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... fayre pleasing shew, 720 Wellcome great Pompey as the Siren doth The wandering shipman with her charming song. Pom. O how it greeues a noble hauty mind, Framed vp in honors vncontrouled schoole, To serue and sue, whoe erst did rule and sway What shall I goe and stoope to Ptolomey, Nought to a noble mind more greefe can bring Then be a begger where thou wert a King, Ach. Wellcome a shore most great and gratious prince Welcome to AEgipt and to Ptolomey. 730 The King my Maister ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous
... I have brought for you; what is it?' To this he did not rap out 'salmon,' as we had all expected—good as it was to the smell, but 'erst riechen' (first let me smell it). This was a ruse on his part, and one to which I succumbed, for no sooner did I hold it nearer to his nose than he snatched it out of my hand! It was, however, promptly taken from him and he was told he would have ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... his lady's window, erst, In hopeless mood, A minstrel stood. As, passionate, he smote my first, From his sad lips my second passed, And from my first rang out ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... steps of Newbery, and supplied the infant mind with its first and sweetest literary food. The munificent Newbery, and the pious and loyal Hugh Gaine, and the patriotic Samuel Loudon are departed. Banks now abound and brokers swarm where Loudon erst printed, and many millions worth of silk and woolen goods are every year sold where Gaine vended his big Bibles and his little story-books. They are all gone; the glittering covers and their more brilliant contents, the tales of wonder and enchantment, the father's best ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... more Lend to the Muse its peerless aid, That erst on Albion's ingrate shore Sooth'd Otway's ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... Hudson's cliff-crowned banks, from proud Ohio's flood, From that dark rock in Plymouth's bay where erst the pilgrims stood, From East and North, from far and near, went forth the gathering cry, And the countless hordes came swarming on with fierce and lustful eye. In the great name of Liberty each thirsty sword is drawn; In the great name of ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... Queen" is the masterpiece of an original mind, and its supreme poetic quality is a lofty magnificence upon the whole foreign to Chaucer's genius; but Spenser owed something more than his archaic forms to "Tityrus," with whose style he had erst disclaimed all ambition to match his pastoral pipe. In a well-known passage of his great epos he declares that it is through sweet infusion of the older poet's own spirit that he, the younger, follows the footing of his feet, in order so the rather to meet with his ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... Hadrian's warm hands, That now found them but cold! O hair bound erstwhile with the pressing bands! O eyes too diffidently bold! O bare female male-body like A god that dawns into humanity! O lips whose opening redness erst could strike Lust's seats with a soiled art's variety! O fingers skilled in things not to be named! O tongue which, counter-tongued, the throbbed brows flamed! O glory of a wrong lust pillowed on Raged conciousness's spilled suspension! These things are things that now must be no ...
— Antinous: A Poem • Fernando Antonio Nogueira Pessoa
... author's, that some of the spiral and armed wheels may be revolving yet in the vast ocean of space in which they are engulfed. Thus has the telescope traced the 'binding' influences of the Pleiades, loosened the bands of 'Orion'—erst the chief nebulous hazy wonders, once and for all revealing its separate stars: and thus, in brief, has this wondrous instrument 'unrolled the heavens as a scroll.' Yet even these astonishing results are as nothing ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... with the scriptural text, 'For he alone bestows bliss' (Taitt. Up. II, 7). Things are not dear, or the contrary, to us by themselves, but only in so far as the highest Self makes them such. Compare the text, 'The same thing which erst gave us delight later on becomes the source of grief; and what was the cause of wrath afterwards tends to peace. Hence there is nothing that in itself is of the nature either of pleasure ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... absolute, graces divine, And amplitude of mind to greatest deeds. Therefore I am returned, lest confidence 140 Of my success with Eve in Paradise Deceive ye to persuasion over-sure Of like succeeding here. I summon all Rather to be in readiness with hand Or counsel to assist, lest I, who erst Thought none my equal, now be overmatched." So spake the old Serpent, doubting, and from all With clamour was assured their utmost aid At his command; when from amidst them rose Belial, the dissolutest Spirit that fell, 150 The sensualest, and, after Asmodai, The fleshliest ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... To see the noble and joyous Sir Asinus grow melancholy—to see those legs, which erst glided through the minuet and reel, now dangling wearily—to see that handsome visage so drawn down; is ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... whom you see the plump and lusty dame, With high erected chest and vigorous mien, Was erst th' enamored knight Don Quixote's flame, The fair ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Where erst the jay, within the elm's tall crest, Made garrulous trouble round her unfledged young, And where the oriole hung her swaying nest, By every light ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... thy mind the thought That I could love another. Thou dost reign Supreme, without a rival, in my heart, And I am thine alone; disown me not, Else must I die a second deadlier death, Killed by thy words, as erst by Kama's[47] shafts. ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... time was that I hated thee, And yet it is not that I bear thee love. Thy company, which erst was irksome to me, I will endure But do not look for further recompense. ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... to stamens in willows has been frequently remarked, as in Salix babylonica, silesiaca, cinerea, Caprea and nigricans. One of the most curious illustrations of this transformation in this genus is given by Henry and Macquart (Erst. Jahrb. des bot. Vereines am m. et n. Rhein., 1837). In the flowers in question the series of changes were as follows:—first, the ovary opened by a slit, and then expanded into a cup; next, anther-cells were ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... her old life; and this has been, men say, But this we know not, who have only sleep To soothe us, sleep more terrible than day, Where dead delights, and fair lost faces stray, To make us weary at our wakening; And of that long-lost path to the Divine We dream, as some Greek shepherd erst might sing, Half credulous, of easy Proserpine And of the lands that lie 'beneath the ...
— Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems • Andrew Lang
... Erstenmalhoeren ueber eine Composition; was dir im ersten Augenblick gefaellt, ist nicht immer das Beste. Meister wollen studirt sein. Vieles wird dir erst im hoechsten ...
— Advice to Young Musicians. Musikalische Haus- und Lebens-Regeln • Robert Schumann
... pleasantest idea which the Greek could form of a landscape, next to a marsh with poplars in it; not, indeed, if possible, ever to be without these last; thus, in commending the Cyclops' country as one possessed of every perfection, Homer erst says: "They have soft marshy meadows near the sea, and good, rich, crumbling, ploughing-land, giving fine deep crops, and vines always giving fruit"; then, "a port so quiet, that they have no need of cables in it; and at the head of the port, a beautiful clear spring just under a ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... fury of that day A fate more cruel still, unhappy, view. Opposing winds may stop thy luckless way, And spread fell famine through the suffering crew, Canst thou endure th' extreme of raging Thirst 45 Which soon may scorch thy throat, ah! thoughtless Youth! Or ravening hunger canst thou bear which erst On its own flesh hath fix'd ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... it is our boasted claim To nurse the precious juice 3. That maddened erst the Theban dame, With ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pitched in Hawarden's peaceful vale, And harmless shafts the platted targe assail; While now the bow (the archers more intent On making love than making war) is bent; Beneath those towers, where erst their fathers drew In deadly conflict bows of tougher yew; Lo! Charity, a native of the skies, Whose smile betrays her through a vain disguise, Mounts the steep hill, and 'neath th' o'erhanging wall, ...
— The Hawarden Visitors' Hand-Book - Revised Edition, 1890 • William Henry Gladstone
... was a spontaneous product. For how "Her fresh benignant look Nature changes at that lorn season when, With tresses drooping o'er her sable stole, She yearly mourns the mortal doom of man, Her noblest work! So Israel's virgins erst With annual moan upon the mountains wept ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... came we and the coast Of Macedonia, to the ford of Axius, And Bolbe's canebrakes and the Pangaean range, Edonian borders. Then in that grim night God sent unseasonable frost, and froze The stream of holy Strymon. He who erst Recked nought of gods, now prayed with supplication, Bowing before the powers of earth and sky. But when the hosts from lengthy orisons Surceased, it crossed the ice-incrusted ford. And he among us who set forth before The sun-god's rays were scattered, now was ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... granted All the fancies which erst To none allow'd he Saving himself; Now he takes his pleasure In ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... With summons to the bards For the sweet flowing song, And wizards' posing lore And wisdom of Druids. In the court of the sons of the distributor Some are who did appear Intent on wily schemes, By craft and tricking means, In pangs of affliction To wrong the innocent, Let the fools be silent, As erst in Badon's fight,— With Arthur of liberal ones The head, with long red blades; Through feats of testy men, And a chief with his foes. Woe be to them, the fools, When revenge comes on them. I Taliesin, chief of bards, With a sapient druid's words, Will set kind Elphin free From haughty ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 3 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... Hunt, the king then said, In lieu of what was from thee ta'en, A noble a-day now thou shalt have, Sir Andrew's jewels and his chain. And Horseley thou shalt be a knight, And lands and livings shalt have store; Howard shall be earl of Surrey hight, As Howards erst have been before. ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... use As they who drink the immortal juice. And let the nymphs supreme in grace, And maidens of the minstrel race, Monkeys and snakes, and those who rove Free spirits of the hill and grove, And wandering Daughters of the Air, In monkey form brave children bear. So erst the lord of bears I shaped, Born from my ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... sometimes upon that face, When robbed of every lineament of grace, And I have cried unto the heavens above, "It was not this, O God, I pledged to love; Unsteady gait, wild brain and selfish heart—" Flashed the red lights of danger "till death part." Tell me, soul-searching ray, if erst I strove To cherish, feed and guard where grew no love. We sailed away to far Australia's shore, Oh, the long days passed near the ocean's roar. For him on whom I leaned in hope and trust, Proved but coarse clay that crumbled soon to dust. Drinking ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... Rome, I am avenged; did she not offer prayers Erst unto Jove, late unto Christ?—to e'en a Jew, she dares! Now, in thy terror, own my right to rule above them all; Alone I rest—except this pile, I leave no ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... blossoms young, That erst on Flora's forehead hung; But round thy radiant temples twine, The flowers whose flaunting mocks ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... reft of rest no repose I command, * And my grief is redoubled in this far land: Erst I had a father, a kinder ne'er was; * But he died and to Death paid the deodand: When he went from me, every matter went wrong * Till my heart was nigh-broken, my nature unmanned: He bought me a handmaid, a sweeting ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... hears Rolland the rear shall be his lot, To his step-father thus in wrath he speaks:— "Ah! traitor, evil man of race impure, Thou thought'st to see me here let fall the glove As thou erst dropped the staff before ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... bade be dight Ten fair mules of snowy white, Erst from the King of Sicily brought Their trappings with silver and gold inwrought— Gold the bridle, and silver the selle. On these are the messengers mounted well; And they ride with olive boughs in hand, To seek the Lord of the Frankish ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... joy the adventure strange pursues, Moving with ready haste behind the dame, Who brings her to the sepulchre which mews The bones and spirit, erst of Merlin's name. The tomb, of hardest stone which masons use, Shone smooth and lucid, and as red as flame. So that although no sun-beam pierced the gloom, Its splendour ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... these words as equivalent to transgressing the command that requires all our heart, and she began quickly, 'Oh! but I didn't mean—' then a sudden thrill crossed her whether there might not be some truth in the accusation. Where had erst the image of Owen Sandbrook stood? First or second? Where was now the image of the boy? She turned her words into 'Do you think I am ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Delighted once the fairest nymphs that dance upon the plains! You discontents, whose deep and over-deadly smart Have, without pity, broke the truest heart. Sighs, tears, and every sad annoy, That erst did with me dwell, And ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... my Hope, were grey, So far I viewed thee. Now the space between Is passed at length; and garmented in green Even as in days of yore thou stand'st to-day. Ah God! and but for lingering dull dismay, On all that road our footsteps erst had been Even thus commingled, and our shadows seen Blent on the hedgerows ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
... standard of Godfrey de Bouillon, on the first swell of Mount Calvary," said the elder knight; "there on the left, where the Jewish rabble erst stoned St. Stephen, Tancred and Robert of Normandy conduct the attack; there, between the citadel and the foot of Mount Zion, floats the ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... swallows, fleeing before the hoopoes, shall have all flocked together in one place, and shall refrain them from all amorous commerce, then will be the end of all the ills of life; yea, and Zeus, which doth thunder in the skies, shall set above what was erst below...." ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... And, since your highness hath so well vouchsaf'd, If we deserve them not with higher meeds Than erst our states and actions have retain'd, Take them away again, [239] and make ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... much likelihood, Such bandits did in England erst abound, When polity was young. I have read of the pranks Of that mad archer, and of the tax he levied On travellers, whatever their degree, Baron, or knight, whoever pass'd these woods, Layman, or priest, not sparing the bishop's mitre For spiritual regards; nay, once, 'tis said, He robb'd ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... world that lifts them up to high degree, And treads us down in grovelling misery! England affords these glorious vagabonds, That carried erst their fardels on their backs, Coursers to ride on through the gazing streets, Sweeping it in their glaring satin suits, And pages to attend ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... round about the world or no; for learned men do diversely handle that question. The natural course of all waters is downward, wherefore of congruence they fall that way where they find the earth most low and deep: in respect whereof, it was erst said, the seas do strike from the northern lands southerly. Violently the seas are tossed and troubled divers ways with the winds, increased and diminished by the course of the moon, hoisted up and down through the ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... aspiring top, Whose frame is pav'd with sundry-colour'd stones, And roof'd aloft with curious work in gold. Thus hitherto hath Faustus spent his time: But tell me [104] now, what resting-place is this? Hast thou, as erst I did command, Conducted me ...
— Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... the beauty of my queen, And all amazed, to wonder thus began: "Why dotes not Jove, as erst we all have seen, And shapes himself like to a seemly man? Mean are the matches which he sought before, Like bloomless buds, too base to make compare, And she alone hath treasured beauty's store, In whom ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... Esteem and friendship to express, Will not require poetic dress; And if the Muse deny her aid To have them sung, they may be said. But, Stella, say, what evil tongue Reports you are no longer young; That Time sits with his scythe to mow Where erst sat Cupid with his bow; That half your locks are turn'd to gray? I'll ne'er believe a word they say. 'Tis true, but let it not be known, My eyes are somewhat dimmish grown; For nature, always in the right, To your ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... I am thine now as erst, and my first love was ever—ever dear to me. Have I been near thee dying for a whole year, and didst thou make no effort to rescue thy Rowena? Have ye given to others—I mention not their name nor their odious creed—the heart that ought to be mine? I send thee my forgiveness ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mydsomer flowre, Jentyll as fawcoun Or hawke of the towre: As pacient and as styll, And as full of good wyll As faire Isaphill; Colyaunder, Swete pomaunder, Goode Cassaunder; Stedfast of thought, Wele made, wele wrought; Far may be sought, Erst that ye can fynde So corteise, so kynde, As mirry Margaret, This mydsomer floure, Jentyll as fawcoun ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... itself, Or dwarfed by pride, or love of pelf, Can serve its Maker or mankind As nobly as was erst designed By the Great Architect above, Whose ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... grein. 3310 Thurgh charite thus he despendeth His good, wherof that he amendeth The povere poeple, and contrevaileth The harm, that he hem so travaileth: And thus the woful nyhtes sorwe To joie is torned on the morwe; Al was thonkinge, al was blessinge, Which erst was wepinge and cursinge; Thes wommen gon hom glade ynowh, Echon for joie on other lowh, 3320 And preiden for this lordes hele, Which hath relessed the querele, And hath his oghne will forsake In charite for goddes sake. Bot now hierafter thou schalt ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... 15th May, at Genoa, on his route to Rome, aged 72, Daniel O'Connell, the erst "uncrowned King of Ireland," who, during his lifetime, had been a thorn (and a very troublesome one) in the side of every English government. His heart was forwarded to Rome, but his body was embalmed, and, in due time, was sent to ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... result of this division of land, and as every purchaser pleased himself in the matter of architecture, the style of building may be called that of "the free and easy." Many estates have been divided since then, thousands of acres in the outskirts being covered with houses where erst were green fields, and in a certain measure Birmingham owes much of its extension to the admirable working of the several Societies. As this town led the van in the formation of the present style of ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... recalling to memory the tragic events of those days, (handed down as they have been by their fathers, who were eye-witnesses of the transaction,) and peopling the surrounding gloom with the shades of those whose life-blood erst crimsoned the once pure waters of that now nearly exhausted stream; and whose mangled and headless corpses were slowly borne by its tranquil current into the bosom of the parent river, where all traces of ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... Unhappy Franconnette? To her own cottage driven— Worshipping her one relic, sad and dreamily, And whispered to the withered flowers Pascal had loving given: "Dear nosegay, when I saw thee first, Methought thy sweetness was divine, And I did drink it, heart athirst; But now thou art not sweet as erst, Because those wicked thoughts of mine Have blighted all thy beauty rare; I'm sold to powers of ill, for Heav'n hath spurned my prayer; My love is deadly love! No hope on earth have I! So, treasure of my heart, flowers of the meadow fair, Because I bless the hand that gathered thee, ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... back. Loud on left Thor thundered: in anger awful the hammerhurler. Came now the storm that hist his heart. And Master Lynch bade him have a care to flout and witwanton as the god self was angered for his hellprate and paganry. And he that had erst challenged to be so doughty waxed wan as they might all mark and shrank together and his pitch that was before so haught uplift was now of a sudden quite plucked down and his heart shook within the cage of his breast as he tasted the rumour of that storm. Then did some mock and some jeer and Punch ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... crime, beyond control: By my rash hand a father's blood was spilt, And I abjured for aye the death-drugg'd bowl. This is my tale of woe; and if thou wilt Be warn'd by me, the sparkling cup resign; A serpent lurks within the ruby wine, Guileful and strong as him who erst betray'd The world's first parents in their bowers of joy. Let not the tempting draught your soul pervade; It shines to kill, and sparkles to destroy. The drunkard's sentence has been seal'd above,— Exiled for ever from the ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... them up to high degree, And treads us down in grovelling misery, England affords these glorious vagabonds That carried erst their fardels on their backs Coursers to ride on through the gazing streets, Sweeping it in their glaring satin suits, And pages to attend their masterships. With mouthing words that better wits have framed, They purchase lands and now ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... and my worthy lord; The faithful love that did us two combine In marriage and peaceable concord, Into your hands here do I clean resign, To be bestowed unto your children and mine; Erst were ye father, now must ye supply The mother's part ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude |
