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More "Swain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... word occurr'd Which somewhat moved the lady's bile; From less to more her anger wax'd— How sheepish look'd her swain the while!— And now upon their faces twain There is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... jovial swain may rack his brain, And tax his fancy's might; To quiz is vain, for 'tis most plain That what I ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous
... swain, do highly disdain To waste out their time in care; And Clim of the Clough hath plenty enough If he but a penny can spare To spend at the night, in joy and delight, Now after his labor all day; For ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... Swain! He waits the accustomed hour, When twilight-gloom obscures the closing sky; Then gladly seeks his loved paternal bower, And shares the feast ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... less aptness. When some one likened it to a potato, because it 'shoots from the eyes,' was it not Byron who was wicked enough to add, 'and because it becomes all the less by pairing'? One wretched swain tells us that he finds it ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... deny all knowledge of the article in question her sorely tried swain created a diversion by rising. To that simple act he imparted an emphasis which commanded the attention of both beholders, and, drawing over to Miss Kybird, he stood over her in an attitude at once terrifying ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... For answer the gentle swain took her by the elbows and propelled her into the shop, and approaching the counter gazed disagreeably at ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... last did go, The pilot of the Galilean lake; Two massy keys he bore of metals twain, (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain), He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake, 'How well could I have spar'd for thee, young swain, Enow of such as for their bellies' sake Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold! Of other care they little reckoning make, Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast, And shove away the worthy bidden guest; ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... And, lost each human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix for ever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... grateful, and ever will be so till nature herself shall change. No tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, nor chemic power turn thy scepter into iron. With thee to smile upon him, as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than the monarch from whose courts thou art exiled." So ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... that boasts of golden stores, Of grain, that loads his groaning floors, Of fields with freshening herbage green, Where bounding steeds and herds are seen, I call not happier than the swain, Whose limbs are sound, whose food is plain, Whose joys a blooming wife endears, Whose ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... and dancing. But I am naturally, and from principle, too, a lover of all those innocent amusements which cheer the laborer's toil, and, as it were, put their shoulders to the wheel of life, and help the poor man along with his load of cares. Hence I saw with no small delight the rustic swain astride the wooden horse of the carrousel, and the village maiden whirling round and round in its dizzy car; or took my stand on the rising ground that overlooked the dance, an idle spectator in a busy throng. It was just where the village touched the outward border of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... with shepherds in the groves, Sung to my oaten pipe their rural loves, And issuing thence, compelled the neighb'ring field A plenteous crop of rising corn to yield; Manured the glebe, and stocked the fruitful plain (A poem grateful to the greedy swain)," &c. ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... of the gipsies, And in boiling kettles, fiercely eddying, struggled the caloric, With gases, and the saccharine spirit, until the granulated sugar, Showed a calm, brown face, welcome to the stores of the housewife; Moulded also into small cakes, it formed the favorite confection Of maiden and swain, during the ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... think so," said the spiteful waiting-maid; "when he gave me this letter he sighed, and rolled up his eyes like a love-sick swain." ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... of going out to India without you? You had a tendre for him—a little passion—you know you had. Why, even the ladies here know it. Mrs. Bonnington told me that you were waiting for a sweetheart in India to whom you were engaged; and Lady Kicklebury thinks you are dying in love for the absent swain. ...
— The Wolves and the Lamb • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Matron of the fields, I sing to you; And all the fondest love that summer yields I bring to you; Yet there you squat, immense in your disdain, Heedless of all the tears of streaming rain My eyes drip over you—your breathless swain; ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... unsightly root, But of divine effect. Unknown, and like esteem'd, and the dull swain Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon; And yet more med'cinal is it than that moly That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave; He call'd it haemony, and gave it me, And bade me keep it as of sovran use 'Gainst ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... him. In the first place, Professor Swain, the examining professor—now president of Swarthmore College—was the head of Stanford's department of mathematics. In the second place, he was a Quaker, and a man who liked the right sort of boys. And so a candidate who was a little weak in the languages, but was strong in arithmetic and ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... course there was love-making—it was of the old- fashioned, boy-and-girl kind, with keepsakes and pledges and long walks in the afternoons and whispered secrets at the merry-makings. Never anything else. Woe betide the swain who forgot himself ever so slightly—there was no night-key for him after that, nor would any of the girls on any front steps in town ever look his way again when he passed— and to their credit be it said, few of the young men either. From that day on the ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... old beau garcon, "although for six times three hundred and sixty-five days, your swain has placed the capuchin round your neck, and the stove under your feet, and driven your little sledge upon the ice in winter, and your cabriole through the dust in summer, you may dismiss him at once, without reason or apology, upon ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... I was one, Among the fields wild flowers are fair; Some country swain might me have won, And ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... of law but her caprice. A fairer could not be, Nor crueller, than she. Still charming in her sternest mien,— E'en when her haughty look debarr'd,— What had she been to lover in The fortress of her kind regard! Daphnis, a high-born shepherd swain, Had loved this maiden to his bane. Not one regardful look or smile, Nor e'en a gracious word, the while, Relieved the fierceness of his pain. O'erwearied with a suit so vain, His hope was but to die; No power ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... A blissful swain—I scorn'd the song Which says that though young Love is strong, The Fates are stronger; Breezes then blew a boon to men, The buttercups were bright, and then ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... team came to town and promptly signed Henderson and announced him for Saturday's game. Cairns won the first of the series and Radbourne lost the second. It was Rube's turn to pitch the Saturday game and I resolved to make one more effort to put the love-sick swain in something like his old fettle. So ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... name, gave also Bunn and Bunce; for the spelling of the latter name cf. Dance for Dans, and Pearce for Piers, the nominative of Pierre (Alternative Origins, Chapter I), which also survives in Pears and Pearson. Swain may go back to the father of Canute, or to some hoary-headed swain who, possibly, tended the swine. Not all the Seymours are St. Maurs. Some of them were once Seamers, i.e. tailors. Gosling is rather trivial, but it represents the romantic Jocelyn, in Normandy Gosselin, a diminutive of ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... courtier came— A dashing dapper Lieut. R.N.; And, as this paragon pressed his claim, Oh, what could William hope for then? How could a wobbly-braided swain Vie with the actual Royal Navy, Whose stripes were half as broad again And straight, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various
... Cloudy but no rane. went down to Langley's store for some juju paste, saw a fite. Old Kize tried to arest Bill Hartnit and Bill lammed time out of him and after a while old Swain ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... Indited not as wont on palimpsest, 5 But paper-royal, brand-new boards, and best Fresh bosses, crimson ribbands, sheets with lead Ruled, and with pumice-powder all well polished. These as thou readest, seem that fine, urbane Suffenus, goat-herd mere, or ditcher-swain 10 Once more, such horrid change is there, so vile. What must we wot thereof? a Droll erst while, Or (if aught) cleverer, he with converse meets, He now in dullness, dullest villain beats Forthright on handling verse, nor is the wight 15 Ever so happy as when verse he write: ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... is to the world a secret yet Whether the nymph, to please her swain, Talks in a high romantic strain, Or whether he at last descends To act with less seraphic ends. Or, to compound the business, whether They temper love and books together, Must never to mankind be told, Nor shall the ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... ample opportunities of showing his skill; and, like the carved lovespoons, of which there is such a famous collection in the Cardiff Museum, the knitting sheaths and sticks seem to indicate that in a similar way the amorous swain gave vent to his feelings in the curious designs, mottoes, and names which he carved upon knitting sticks and kindred objects used by the lady of his choice. In the Victoria and Albert Museum there are some beautiful boxwood needle sticks; one example is cleverly carved with emblems of Faith, ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... Anne's ear and she could hear nothing of the conversation opposite, although now and again she caught a syllable from a low toneless voice. But his first agony was passed as well as her own, and she endeavoured to forget him in her swain's comments upon the political news arrived with the packet that afternoon. When tea was over and Miss Bargarny, who cultivated liveliness of manner, had engaged the poet in a discussion upon the ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... evening before his departure, and when Rebecca answered his knock, stammered solemnly, "Can I k-keep comp'ny with you when you g-g-row up?" "Certainly NOT," replied Rebecca, closing the door somewhat too speedily upon her precocious swain. ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... might be given to a newly engaged girl, as suggestive of the coming bridal. That half-blown bud would say a great deal from a lover to his idol; and this heliotrope be most encouraging to a timid swain. Here is a rosy daisy for some merry little damsel; there is a scarlet posy for a soldier; this delicate azalea and fern for some lovely creature just out; and there is a bunch of sober pansies for a spinster, ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... if they were capable of entertaining it, for when two young people are fond of each other no pressure is ever made upon them to suffocate their love or to fix their affections upon another through ambition or some sort of hypocritical respect for the usages of society. If the enamoured swain can manage his blowpipe ably enough to procure animal food for his wife their amorous desires are at once contented. And so is the custom among more mature couples. Should it happen that a man no longer cares for his ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... what terrors, does thy gift create, Ambiguous emblem of uncertain fate; The myrtle, ensign of supreme command, Consigned by Venus to Melissa's hand: Not less capricious than a reigning fair, Now grants, and now rejects a lover's prayer. In myrtle shades oft sings the happy swain, In myrtle shades despairing ghosts complain: The myrtle crowns the happy lovers' heads, The unhappy lover's grave the myrtle spreads: Oh, then, the meaning of thy gift impart, And ease the throbbings of an anxious heart! Soon must this bough, as you shall fix his doom, ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... parties to a love-transaction: the one who loves and the other who condescends to be so treated. Perhaps the love is occasionally on the man's side; perhaps on the lady's. Perhaps some infatuated swain has ere this mistaken insensibility for modesty, dulness for maiden reserve, mere vacuity for sweet bashfulness, and a goose, in a word, for a swan. Perhaps some beloved female subscriber has arrayed an ass in the splendour and glory of her imagination; admired ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Mr. Campbell has regretted that Shenstone not only "affected that arcadianism" which "gives a certain air of masquerade in his pastoral character," adopted by our earlier poets, but also has "rather incongruously blended together the rural swain with the disciple of virtu." All this requires some explanation. It is not only as a poet, possessing the characteristics of poetry, but as a creator in another way, for which I claim the attention of the reader. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... replaced the tinkling bells. The attitudes of the dancing nymph now denoted overpowering lassitude. Her bosom heaved with sighs, and her whole being expressed profound languor, although it was not clear whether she sighed for an absent swain or was expiring of love in his embrace. With half-closed eyes and quivering form, she caused mysterious undulations to flow downward over her whole body, like rippling waves, while her face remained impassive and her twinkling feet still moved ...
— Herodias • Gustave Flaubert
... me for you, and I soon after found out who he was; indeed, so far from attempting to disguise himself, he spoke in his own voice and in his own person. He now began to make very violent love to me, but it was rather in the stile of a great man of the present age than of an Arcadian swain. In short, he laid his whole fortune at my feet, and bade me make whatever terms I pleased, either for myself or for others. By others, I suppose he meant your husband. This, however, put a thought into my head of turning ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... activity when going about her duties. She does unusual things like remembering to polish the brasses every week—indeed you have only to step into the hall and glance at the stair-rods to discover the exact stage of her latest "affair." I remember that, when one ardent swain "in the flying corpse" went to the length of offering her marriage before he flew away, she cleaned the entire house down in her enthusiasm, and had actually got to the cellars before he vanished ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... (1850), came under the eye of the law, because a certain shepherd injudiciously boasted that he had caused them by his magic art. {123a} The cure, who was the victim, took him at his word, and the shepherd swain lost his situation. He then brought an action for defamation of character, but was non- suited, as it was proved that he had been the fanfaron of his own vices. In Froissart's amusing story of Orthon, that noisy sprite was hounded on by a priest. At Tedworth, the owner of the drum was 'wanted' on ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... turned away from me, sans fault of mine! Is there a bitterer thing than distance and disdain? Upon his cheeks there bloom a pair of roses red, Blown ready to be plucked; ah God, those roses twain! Were't lawful to prostrate oneself to any else Than God, I'd sure prostrate myself upon the swain. ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... elf, or fiend, Satyr, or other power, that haunts the groves, Shall hurt my body, or by vain illusion Draw me to wander after idle fires, Or voices calling me in dead of night To make me follow, and so tempt me on Through mire and standing pools to find my swain Else why should this rough thing, who never knew Manners nor smooth humanity, whose herds Are rougher than himself, and more misshapen, Thus mildly kneel ...
— Jesse Cliffe • Mary Russell Mitford
... stick from his mouth, and looking me in the face, at first carelessly, but presently with something like interest; 'he is old, like myself, but can still trot his twenty miles an hour. You won't live long, my swain; tall and overgrown ones like thee never does; yet, if you should chance to reach my years, you may boast to thy great grand boys, ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... Pitcairne's Trials, vol. iii. page 614,) we have the following catalogue of attendant spirits, rather, it must be confessed, a formidable band. "The names of our Divellis, that waited upon us, ar thes: first, Robert the Jakis; Sanderis, the Read Roaver; Thomas the Fearie; Swain, the Roaring Lion; Thieffe of Hell; Wait upon Hirself; Mak Hectour; Robert the Rule; Hendrie Laing; and Rorie. We would ken them all, on by on, from utheris. Some of theim apeirit in sadd dunn, som in grasse-grein, som in sea-grein, and ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... there is a swain I dearly lo'e mysel'. But what's his name or where's his hame I dinna choose ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the Augustan Age Perused in Virgil's golden page, The story of the secret won From Proteus by Cyrene's son— How the dank sea-god showed the swain Means to restore his hives again. More briefly, how a slaughtered bull Breeds honey by ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... daughter?" he exclaimed. "I sent you for help, to get our German neighbor, Johann Swain, and you come back after all these hours bringing freaks from a circus. But at least they do not look as ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... benefit of old mas'r. This done, she orders the servant to show him his bed in one of the "yard houses;" bids the old man an affectionate good night, retires to her room, and watches the return of her truant swain. ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... my Cheek, and sigh, and often (when alone) wou'd send for me, and smile, and talk, and set my Hair in Curls, to make me saucy and familiar with her. One Day she said, Endimion, thy Name-sake was thus caress'd by Cynthia: A Goddess did not scorn the humble Swain, whom by her Love she equal'd to her Deity. She found that I had Sense to understand her, and paid her Advances back with ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... drained away its sweet life-blood,—the beech, its smooth gray bark mottled so as to look like the body of one of those great snakes of old that used to frighten armies, always the mark of lovers' knives, as in the days of Musidora and her swain,—the yellow birch, rough as the breast of Silenus in old marbles,—the wild cherry, its little bitter fruit lying unheeded at its foot,—and, soaring over all, the huge, coarse-barked, splintery-limbed, dark-mantled hemlock, in the depth of whose aerial solitudes the crow brooded ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Mason, "the Poem was originally intended to conclude, before the happy idea of the hoary-headed Swain, &c. suggested itself to him." To reconstitute the poem with this original ending gives an interesting structure. The first three quatrains evoke the fall of darkness; four stanzas follow presenting the rude ...
— An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751) and The Eton College Manuscript • Thomas Gray
... gravel, and all green his clothes, In doleful dumps the downcast Doctor rose, Then slunk unpitied from the hated plain, And inly groaning sought his couch again; Yet, as he went, he backward cast his view, And bade his ancient power a last adieu. So, when some sturdy swain through miry roads A grunting porker to the market goads, With twisted neck, splash'd hide, and progress slow, Oft backward looks the swine, and half disdains to go. "Ah me! how fallen," with choaking sobs he said, And ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... refuse to dance, and the fact that he was "the Boss's" guest, if only a boy, carried weight. Sarah rose, with a rueful glance at her disappointed swain. The two disconsolate faces moved ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... fell into haggard lines, but the next instant he got a fresh grip of himself. He would show her, he would let her see that he was no weakling, no lovelorn swain pleading for denied favours. He squared his shoulders. He took up his hat and went into the street again. He called a taxi and gave the address of the hotel where Christine and her mother ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... master, smiling, "I fear you are a faithless swain. I thought Alley Mahon was at least ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the expectant circle. The girl, in her turn, throws a favorable regard on some fortunate young man, offers her hand to lead him forth, makes him happy with a maidenly kiss, and withdraws to hide her blushes, if any there be, among the simpering faces in the ring; while the favored swain loses no time in transferring her salute to the prettiest and plumpest among the many mouths that are primming themselves in anticipation. And thus the thing goes on, till all the festive throng are inwreathed and intertwined into an endless and ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... they had news ten times a year, and not more than four months old. One of the best of their stories is of a certain lover whose gallant grace was not unworthy a courtier of Queen Elizabeth. One evening this swain, after securing at the post-office his treasured mail budget, was escorting his lady-love home through the muddy, ill-lighted streets of little Christchurch. A light of some sort was needed at an especially miry crossing. The devoted squire did not spread ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... riches and rank I do not long— Their pleasures are false and vain; I gave up the love of a lordly throng For the love of a simple swain. But now that simple swain's untrue, With sorrowful heart I turn to you— A heart that's aching, Quaking, breaking, As sorrowful hearts are ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... model rapidly to perfection, and, proceeding with it to Washington, obtained a patent. On his return home he met Mr. Swain, the proprietor of the Baltimore Sun and Philadelphia Ledger, and explained his invention to him. Mr. Swain was so much pleased with it that he at once ordered a four-cylinder press, which was completed and ready for use ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... been pressed in only a few minutes before. The whip was new and had a yellow ribbon on it; the gray suit of clothes was new, and the coat flourished a flower in its button-hole. The hat was the latest thing in hats, and the intrepid swain wore a seal-ring on the little finger of his right hand. As Rebecca remembered that she had guided it in making capital G's in his copy-book, she felt positively maternal, although she was two years younger than ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... foundation in truth. Mr. Glascock, if he were not actually engaged to the American girl, had probably been flirting with her;—and, if so, where was that picture which Lady Rowley had been painting for herself of a love-lorn swain to be brought back to the pleasures and occupations of the world only by the girl of whom he was enamoured? But still she would not quite give up the project. Mr. Glascock, if he was in Italy, would no doubt see by the newspapers that ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... sturdy foot-ball swain, Joan strokes a syllabub or twain. The fields and gardens were beset With ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... respite to make her choise: upon this triall, Qui bien aime tard oublie-'He that loveth well is slow to forget.'" The female satin-bower bird in the Regent's Park seems to have taken a leaf out of the 'formell egle's' book: for I cannot discover that her humble and most obsequious swain has been rewarded for his attentions though they have been continued through so many weary months; but we shall never be able entirely to solve these mysteries till we become possessed of the rare ring sent to the King of Sarra by the King of Arable, 'by the vertue whereof' his daughter ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... altogether by the weight of the name she would have to pronounce. Mrs. Green had received her communication flippantly, and had probably felt that her friend intended to demean herself by some mere common marriage. "Who is to be the happy swain?" asked Mrs. Green. ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... ungentle sport that oft invites The Spanish maid, and cheers the Spanish swain, Nurtured in blood betimes, his heart delights In ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the effect of the pastoral on the minds of men living in cities; but the class of poetry which I mean, and which you probably understand by the term pastoral, is that in which a farmer's girl is spoken of as a "nymph," and a farmer's boy as a "swain," and in which, throughout, a ridiculous and unnatural refinement is supposed to exist in rural life, merely because the poet himself has neither had the courage to endure its hardships, nor the wit to conceive its realities. If you examine ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... thee." Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. Then "Ruthless Aphrodite," Daphnis said, "Accursed Aphrodite, foe to man! Say'st thou mine hour is come, my sun hath set? Dead as alive, shall Daphnis work Love woe." Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. "Fly to Mount Ida, where the swain (men say) And Aphrodite—to Anchises fly: There are oak-forests; here but galingale, And bees that make a music round the hives. Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. "Adonis owed his bloom to tending flocks And smiting hares, and ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... then girding round his waist, Forth rushed the swain with hospitable haste, Straight to the lodgements of his herd he run, Where the fat porkers slept beneath the sun; Of two his cutlass launched the spouting blood; These quartered, singed, and fixed on forks ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... we find that the village maid cannot return home from seeing her dying swain, without a doleful ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... some less gifted swain Would I concede my fine but fatal brain, Could I like him but sniff the jasmine spray Or couch unmoved within a mile of hay, And not explode in this ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... you allow one of your retainers to look under the table and see if I left a golosh there—and if so, tell him to leave it at Swain's, to be returned by his messenger on Monday? I must have been tight, and the golosh not tight enough, and I appeared at the Duchess's with one golosh and my trousers tucked up. H.R.H. was much concerned about it, and said, 'It's all that —— ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... irregular state of affairs, the women's behaviour is better than might be expected. Like the Shoka girls, they possess a wonderful frankness and simplicity of manner, with a certain reserve which has its allurements; for the Tibetan swain, often a young man, being attracted by the charms of a damsel, finds that his flirtation with her has become an accepted engagement almost before it has begun, and is compelled, in accordance with custom, to ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... of More Importance, and why they went to the Beach in October; Miss Carlisle Heth, and how she met an Unwelcome Swain at Sea; how this Swain could swim enough for one. . . . ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... orbs; Thy swain doth beg thee but a token small Of that great love which thou dost bear to him. Prithee, sweet mistress, take now heart of grace, At times we all credentials have to show, Eftsoons at Willesden halts the panting train, Each traveller ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... of our English isle, The pride of all the earth, From any tribe of tender brutes, A mother's duly learn?" So to a shepherd of the Alps, A guest of noble birth, A traveller of English race Said on the swain's return; ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley
... and bound up the shelving mountain. But their infant coats are now wet with rain, and their sports are over. Shivering, they follow the shepherd with their bleating dams. And now, adorned with rustic lays and bleeding hearts, the swain sends to his favourite maid the mysterious valentine. The birds choose their mates; it is the season of connubial joys. Mild then be thy reign, ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... the false swain was hurrying o'er the deep His Spartan hostess in the Idaean bark, Old Nereus laid the unwilling winds asleep, That all to Fate might hark, Speaking through him:—"Home in ill hour you take A prize whom ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... was cut short by a sound of lamentation, which, as he went on, came to him in louder and louder bursts. He was attracted to the spot whence the sounds proceeded, and had some difficulty in discovering a doleful swain, who was ensconced in a mass of fern, taller than himself if he had been upright; and but that, by rolling over and over in the turbulence of his grief, he had flattened a large space down to the edge of the forest brook near which he reclined, he would ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... on the king, as the people that night crowded in the rear courtyard around the great tables set in the open air, and groaning beneath viands, nutritious and succulent. What swain or yokel had not a meed of praise for the monarch when he beheld this burden of good cheer, and, at the end of each board, elevated a little and garlanded with roses, a rotund and portly cask of wine, with a spigot projecting ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... the feathered choristers of nature, whose sweetest notes not even Handel can excell, tune your melodious throats to celebrate her appearance. From love proceeds your music, and to love it returns. Awaken therefore that gentle passion in every swain: for lo! adorned with all the charms in which nature can array her; bedecked with beauty, youth, sprightliness, innocence, modesty, and tenderness, breathing sweetness from her rosy lips, and darting brightness from her sparkling eyes, the lovely ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... grew the colour of her swain's pet peonies, and promised obedience. Conscientious Jem there was no fear of—all the rosy-cheeked damsels in Christendom would not have turned him aside from one iota of his duty to Mr. Halifax. Thus there was love in the parlour and love in the kitchen. But, ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... made a swan, a golden shower, Or seems a serpent, or a shepherd-swain, To work his amorous will in secret hour; Here, like an eagle, soars he o'er the plain, Love-led, and bears his Ganymede, the flower Of beauty, mid celestial peers to reign; The boy with cypress hath his fair locks crowned, Naked, with ivy ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... the summit sprang the fount. Nor went he single; Jill, the beauteous maid, Danced at his side, and took his proffered aid. Together went they, pail in hand, and sang Their love songs till the leafy valleys rang. Alas! the fount scarce reached, the heedless swain Turned on his foot and slipped and turned again. Then fell he headlong: and the woe-struck maid, Jealous of his fell doom, a moment stayed And watched him; then to the depths she rushed And shared his fate. Behold them, mangled, ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... years; take this key. Give enlargement to the swain—bring him festinately hither. I must employ him in ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... each young Danish swain who may ride in the forest so dreary, Ne'er to lay down upon lone Elvir Hill though he chance to be ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... embrace of her adoring swain—rosy, joyous, unabashed—she adjusted her hat from its perilous position on one side of her head, and gazed upon Clive and me with unflattering astonishment mixed ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... afraid that I shall otherwise make a very bad bargain in money matters, which wise men like you esteem the most essential part, and I myself, although I be an enamoured swain, do not altogether despise. You may perhaps think it odd that in the midst of my friends here I should call for your help; but the fact is that from several reasons I do not choose to place that confidence in any of my friends ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... sing, Thus he advised me: 'On yon aged tree Hang up thy lute, and hie thee to the sea, That there with wonders thy diverted mind Some truce, at least, may with this passion find.' 40 Ah, cruel nymph! from whom her humble swain Flies for relief unto the raging main, And from the winds and tempests does expect A milder fate than from her cold neglect! Yet there he'll pray that the unkind may prove Bless'd in her choice; and vows this endless love Springs from ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... sea, as they would not in two years on land. Was it all gentlemanly courtesy and politeness on the baronet's side? the girl sometimes wondered. She could analyze her own feelings pretty well. Of that fitful, feverish passion called love, described by the country swain as feeling—"hot and dry like—with a pain in the side like," she felt no particle. There was one, Mr. Charles Stuart, lying about in places, looking serene and sunburnt, who saw it all with sleepy, half-closed eyes, and kept his conclusions ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... girls in Vermont. Albert and she were together a good deal during that week. Anticipating her arrival, the young man's ardent imagination had again fanned what he delighted to think of as his love for her into flame. During the last months of the winter he had not played the languishing swain as conscientiously as during the autumn. Like the sailor in the song "is 'eart was true to Poll" always, but he had broken away from his self-imposed hermitage in his room at the Snow place several times to attend sociables, entertainments and, even, dances. Now, when she returned he ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... resumed his work. The sun went down and the light faded slowly; distant voices sounded close on the still evening air, snatches of hoarse laughter jarred upon his ears. It was clear that the story of the imprisoned swain was giving pleasure ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... wishes to know if the Sicilian pea and crimson corn-flower are hardy flowers, or if they are delicate, and should be sown in warm and sheltered situations? Tell me also if you went to Mrs. John Swain's on Friday, and if you enjoyed yourself; talk to me, in short, as you would do if we were together. Good-morning, dear Nell; I shall say no more to you ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... shepherd, the swain, do highly disdain To waste out their time in care; And Clim of the Clough hath plenty enough If he but a penny can spare To spend at the night, in joy and delight, Now after his labor all day; For better than lands is the help of his hands To drive ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... Now this Freckled Swain, whose name was Ransom, wanted to hop on the Inter-Reuben and go zipping away to see the Great World. He wanted to live in a Big Town where he would not have to walk on the Ploughed Ground and where he could get something Good to Eat. He was tired of the plain Vittles ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... soliloquy was cut short by a sound of lamentation, which, as he went on, came to him in louder and louder bursts. He was attracted to the spot whence the sounds proceeded, and had some difficulty in discovering a doleful swain, who was ensconced in a mass of fern, taller than himself if he had been upright; and but that, by rolling over and over in the turbulence of his grief, he had flattened a large space down to the edge of the forest ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... disgracing himself in his own eyes, that he had been idling his time and neglecting the high duties which he had taken upon himself to perform. He should have spent the afternoon among the poor at St Ewold's, instead of wandering about Plumstead, an ancient love-lorn swain, dejected and sighing, full of imaginary sorrows and Wertherian grief. He was thoroughly ashamed of himself, and determined to lose no time in retrieving his character, so damaged in his own eyes. Thus when he appeared at dinner he ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... you are! I thought you were never coming. Did your hair require an extra half-hour? I suppose you've been tearing it out by the roots over your faithless swain." ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... it had been—any other book. We read on very sociably for a few pages; and, not finding the author much to her taste, she got up, and—went away. Gentle casuist, I leave it to thee to conjecture, whether the blush (for there was one between us) was the property of the nymph or the swain in this dilemma. From me you shall ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... shouted, drawing his bow, "the first man to pass the rail dies the death. And all ye who have come to witness a wedding stay in your seats. We shall e'en have one, since we are come into the church. But the bride shall choose her own swain!" ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... Flute, wou'd kiss my Cheek, and sigh, and often (when alone) wou'd send for me, and smile, and talk, and set my Hair in Curls, to make me saucy and familiar with her. One Day she said, Endimion, thy Name-sake was thus caress'd by Cynthia: A Goddess did not scorn the humble Swain, whom by her Love she equal'd to her Deity. She found that I had Sense to understand her, and paid her Advances back with ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... gushing effusion, the auditors crowded around the proud recipient of the epistle, reading with eager eyes such portions as they could see over the shoulder of their friend. While the representative of the dowager was busily engaged in scanning the amorous lines penned by the lovesick swain (the child left to her care being at some distance in his carriage, sleeping under the shade of some trees), Mrs. Wilkie cautiously approached, and, lifting the unconscious child with the tenderness peculiar to mothers, walked quietly ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... more action, and much more need for an interpreter to act as chorus in the intervals between the dialogues. The story of the wooing of Gerd is in this form: how Frey sat in the seat of Odin and saw a fair maid in Jotunheim, and got great sickness of thought, till his swain Skirnir found the cause of his languishing, and went to woo Gerd for him in Gymi's Garth. Another love-story, and a story not unlike that of Frey and Gerd, is contained in two poems Grgaldr and Filsvinnsml, that tell of the winning of ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... a period of regular visits and intense literary activity on the part of Ronnie, followed by the sudden disappearance of Mam'zelle and an endeavour by the disconsolate swain to liquidate his debts ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... it were a happy life To be no better than a homely swain; To sit upon a hill, as I do now, To carve out dials quaintly point by point, Thereby to see the minutes how they run; How many make the hour full complete; How many hours bring about the day; How many days ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... gentlemanly courtesy and politeness on the baronet's side? the girl sometimes wondered. She could analyze her own feelings pretty well. Of that fitful, feverish passion called love, described by the country swain as feeling—"hot and dry like—with a pain in the side like," she felt no particle. There was one, Mr. Charles Stuart, lying about in places, looking serene and sunburnt, who saw it all with sleepy, half-closed eyes, and kept his conclusions to himself. "Kismet!" ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... rest? Had Cassius, that weak water-drinker, known Thee in thy vine, or had but tasted one Small chalice of thy frantic liquor, he, As the wise Cato, had approv'd of thee. Had not Jove's son,[J] that brave Tirynthian swain, Invited to the Thesbian banquet, ta'en Full goblets of thy gen'rous blood, his sprite Ne'er had kept heat for fifty maids that night. Come, come and kiss me; love and lust commends Thee and thy beauties; kiss, we will be friends Too strong for fate to break us. Look upon Me with ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... Chabannes is the archetypical "decent chap," the faithful but rejected swain who sacrifices himself for the welfare of his beloved without expectation of reward. In the hands of another writer, with some modification, he could have provided a happy ending in the "Mills and ...
— The Princess of Montpensier • Madame de La Fayette
... pain. It was only in romance, he told himself, that the penniless lover suddenly finds himself in a position to marry—in reality, his love suit is rejected with scorn; his adored one marries some one who has, or pretends he has, limitless wealth; and the despised swain ends his days a ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... fair young swain I pray I may not offend, But the very next maid that I know of Sir Tabor's goats ...
— Tord of Hafsborough - and Other Ballads • Anonymous
... appear! and you the feathered choristers of nature, whose sweetest notes not even Handel can excell, tune your melodious throats to celebrate her appearance. From love proceeds your music, and to love it returns. Awaken therefore that gentle passion in every swain: for lo! adorned with all the charms in which nature can array her; bedecked with beauty, youth, sprightliness, innocence, modesty, and tenderness, breathing sweetness from her rosy lips, and darting brightness from her sparkling eyes, the ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... gentle swain took her by the elbows and propelled her into the shop, and approaching the counter gazed disagreeably at ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... lady, I perceived that my bonmot bordered closely upon folly; this vexed me still more, and I wished the two old ladies to the devil. My old uncle's irony had long before brought me through the stage of the languishing love-sick swain, who in childish infatuation coddles his love-troubles; but I knew very well that the Baroness had made a deeper and more powerful impression upon my heart than any other woman had hitherto done. I saw and heard nothing but her; nevertheless I had a most explicit and unequivocal ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... further bearing of this central thought, and that is that the divine is everywhere about us—that we are never far from God. If we can serve Him in our fellows, we can meet Him in our fellows. Richard Swain tells of going home one afternoon and finding his children, Philip, eight years old, and Esther, two years younger, playing together. The latter was standing under the electric light, with both arms raised as high as she could ...
— Hidden from the Prudent - The 7th William Penn Lecture, May 8, 1921 • Paul Jones
... written in 1851, has given us a resume of the plot: 'A fairy, who renounces immortality for the sake of a human lover, can only become a mortal through the fulfilment of certain hard conditions, the non-compliance wherewith on the part of her earthly swain threatens her with the direst penalties; her lover fails in the test, which consists in this, that, however evil and repulsive she may appear to him (in the metamorphosis which she has to undergo), he shall not reject her in his unbelief. In Gozzi's tale the fairy is changed into ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... to loose morals, imperious disposition, and violent temper united as inordinate a personal vanity as was ever vouchsafed to woman, and who up to the verge of decrepitude was addressed by her courtiers in the language of love-torn swain to blooming shepherdess, could naturally find but little to her taste in the hierarchy of Hans Brewer and Hans Baker. Thus her Majesty and her courtiers, accustomed to the faded gallantries with which the serious affairs of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... CHAP. VII.—How Sir Swain Northy* was, by Bleeding, Purging, and a Steel Diet, brought into a Consumption, and how John was forced afterwards to ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... superior power, That conquest over fate, Which sways the weakness of the hour, Rules little things as great: That lulls the human waves of strife With words and feelings kind, And makes the trials of our life The triumphs of our mind. CHARLES SWAIN. ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... green meadows of Sudbury there dwelt a bewitchingly fair maiden, the musical dissyllables of whose name were often upon the lips of the young men in all the country round about, and whose smile could awaken voiceless poetry in the heart of the most prosaic Puritan swain. There is little of aristocratic sound in Mary Loker's name, but her parents sat on Sunday at the meeting house in a "dignified" pew, and were rich in fields and cattle. Whether pushed by pride of land or pride of birth, in their plans and ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... unsolved: but suddenly a loud scream was heard. Miss Hodges started up—the door was thrown open, and Betty Williams rushed in, crying loudly—"Oh, shave me! shave me! for the love of Cot, shave me, miss!" and, pushing by the swain, who held the unfinished glass of brandy in his hand, she threw herself on her knees ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... bid her good-bye; Miss Briskett, tall and angular in her new grey costume; Mrs Ramsden with the black feather fiercely erect in the front of her bonnet; lovely, blooming Elma attended by her swain, and in the background the faithful Mary, holding on to the dressing-bag, and sniffing dolorously. Cornelia had refused to be escorted farther on the journey, and now that the hour had arrived, her one longing was to say her farewells ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... near to thee, father, and the wounded friend, lest I be needed to help thee in the night; and thou, Baron of Sunway, lie thou betwixt me and the wood, to ward me from the wild deer and the wood-wights. But thou, Swain of Upmeads, wilt thou deem it hard to lie anear the horses, to watch them if they be scared ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... The swain that artless sings on yonder rock, His nibbling sheep and lengthening shadow spies; Pleased with the cool, the calm, refreshful hour, And the ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... beau garcon, "although for six times three hundred and sixty-five days, your swain has placed the capuchin round your neck, and the stove under your feet, and driven your little sledge upon the ice in winter, and your cabriole through the dust in summer, you may dismiss him at once, without reason or apology, upon the two thousand one ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... see your hopeful grove with acorns sown, But e're your seed into the field be thrown, With crooked plough first let the lusty swain Break-up, and stubborn clods with harrow plain. Then, when the stemm appears, to make it bare And lighten the hard earth with hough, prepare. Hough in the spring: nor frequent culture fail, Lest noxious weeds o're the young wood prevail: To barren ground with toyl large manure add, Good-husbandry ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... indeed, to some less gifted swain Would I concede my fine but fatal brain, Could I like him but sniff the jasmine spray Or couch unmoved within a mile of hay, And not explode in ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... he has made his choice, he communicates it to his parents, who take the business into their bands. Presents are carried to the door of the fair one's lodge; if they are not accepted, there is an end to the matter, and the swain must look somewhere else; if they are taken in, other presents are returned, as a token of agreement. These generally consist of objects of women's workmanship, such as garters, belts, mocassins, etcetera; then follows ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... Abundant strew'd, such store as had sufficed Two travellers or three for cov'ring warm, Though winter's roughest blasts had rag'd the while. That bed with joy the suff'ring Chief renown'd Contemplated, and occupying soon The middle space, hillock'd it high with leaves. As when some swain hath hidden deep his torch 590 Beneath the embers, at the verge extreme Of all his farm, where, having neighbours none, He saves a seed or two of future flame Alive, doom'd else to fetch it from afar, So with dry leaves Ulysses overspread His body, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... floor and paving, Spread the dress to catch the swain; Sometimes long—in distance waving; Sometimes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... a crier of mustard. Romulus, a salter and patcher of pattens. Numa, a nailsmith. Tarquin, a porter. Piso, a clownish swain. Sylla, a ferryman. Cyrus, a cowherd. Themistocles, a glass-maker. Epaminondas, a maker of mirrors or looking-glasses. Brutus and Cassius, surveyors or measurers of land. Demosthenes, a vine-dresser. Cicero, a fire-kindler. Fabius, a threader of beads. Artaxerxes, a rope-maker. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... though of the smallest pygmy size. Georgiana's lovers were wont to say that some fairy at her birth hour had laid her tiny hand upon the infant's cheek, and left this impress there in token of the magic endowments that were to give her such sway over all hearts. Many a desperate swain would have risked life for the privilege of pressing his lips to the mysterious hand. It must not be concealed, however, that the impression wrought by this fairy sign-manual varied exceedingly ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... Roth to receive on board his ship a Negro boy named "Boston," and for the recovery of the slave. This was a jury-trial in the Court of Common Pleas. The jury brought in a verdict in favor of the slave, and he was "manumitted by the magistrates." John Swain took an appeal from the decision of the Nantucket Court to the Supreme Court of Boston, but never prosecuted it.[398] In 1770, in Hanover, Plymouth County, a Negro asked his master to grant him his freedom as his right. ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... Tyndals wanted her to go to Bideford. Naturally, when the invitation came, he did not object. You'd have laughed if you could have seen her face when he smiled with apparent benevolent delight upon the suggestion. The sight would have repaid you for many a snub, my poor love-sick swain! ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... smiling, "I fear you are a faithless swain. I thought Alley Mahon was at least the first ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... thee for a silly swain; Of things past help, what boots it to complain? 360 Nothing but mirth can conquer fortune's spite; No sky is heavy, if the heart be light: Patience is sorrow's salve: what can't be cured, So Donald ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... have spared for thee, young swain, Enow of such, as for their bellies' sake Creep and intrude and climb into the fold! Of other care they little reckoning make Than how to scramble at the shearer's feast, And shove away the worthy bidden ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... saw your charms in another's arms," Said a Grecian swain with his blood a-boil; "And he kissed you fair as he held you there, A willing bird ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... success Vanessa met Is to the world a secret yet. Whether the nymph to please her swain Talks in a high romantic strain; Or whether he at last descends To act with less seraphic ends; Or, to compound the business, whether They temper love and books together, Must never to mankind be told, Nor shall ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... to hear of your happiness, Matty," said Beatrice; "and I congratulate you, too, Augustus," she added, turning to the bashful swain. ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... essays to sing; Ere the first swallow sweeps the fresh'ning plain, Ere love-sick turtles breathe their amorous pain; Let festive glee th' enliven'd village raise, Pan's blameless reign, and patriarchal days; With pastoral dance the smitten swain surprise, And bring all ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... precisely as the gentleman wished. Rank and fortune were her serious objects, but she had no objection to amusing herself with romance. The idea of seeing the gay, witty Mr, Dashwood metamorphosed, by the power of her charms, into a despairing, sighing swain, played upon her imagination, and she heard his first sigh with a look which plainly showed how well she ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... heard it. "It's coming, I assure you. You see, the station is short of girls, and our young friend is impressionable. He is the sort of amorous swain who gets engaged to a dozen before he settles down to marriage with one. The question for you to decide is, are you going to be one of ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... at greatness, take heed how their nobility and gentlemen do multiply too fast. For that maketh the common subject, grow to be a peasant and base swain, driven out of heart, and in effect but the gentleman's laborer. Even as you may see in coppice woods; if you leave your staddles too thick, you shall never have clean underwood, but shrubs and bushes. So in countries, if the gentlemen be too many, the commons will ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... afraid that this fine young gentleman, with his handsome face and graceful figure, and pleasant voice and ways, would altogether cut him out with saucy Mistress Joan, who, it must be confessed, was fond of teasing her faithful swain, and driving him to the verge of distraction. So it showed Will's good-heartedness that he did not shun and dislike his rival, but rather, when he found him bent on an errand into the forest, offered to go with him part of the way, to make sure ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... her shoulder with all the fingers spread out as if to clutch it, but in so bashful and awkward a manner, that when she whisked herself beyond its reach, the paw remained suspended in the air with the palm open, like the claw of a heraldic griffin—"Jeanie," continued the swain in this moment of inspiration—"I say, Jeanie, it's a braw day out-by, and the roads are no that ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... can this mean, said I, surely this is not the usual way to treat with a rejected suitor; if it be, why then, by Jupiter the successful one must have rather the worst of it—and I fervently hope that Lady Jane be not at this moment giving his conge to some disappointed swain. She slowly raised her long, black fringed eyelids, and looked into my face, with an expression at once so tender and so plaintive, that I felt a struggle within myself whether to press her to my heart, or—what the deuce was the alternative. I hope my ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... curious, and always was, to know him. He has made a great and splendid figure in history, and his weaknesses, though they make his character less worthy of respect, make it more interesting as a study. Such a blooming old swain I never saw; hair combed with exquisite nicety, a waistcoat of driven snow, and a star and garter put on with ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... the swain views the star of day Quench in the pillowing waves its ray, And scatter darkness o'er the eastern skies Rising, his custom'd crook he takes, The beech-wood, fountain, plain forsakes, As calmly homeward with his ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... short-nosed nymph. O sweet Thalia, I do kiss thy foot. What, Clio? O sweet Clio! Nay, prythee, do not weep, Melpomene. What, Urania, Polyhymnia, and Calliope! let me do reverence to your deities. [PHANTASMA pulls him by the sleeve. I am your holy swain that, night and day, Sit for your sakes, rubbing my wrinkled brow, Studying a month for a epithet. Nay, silver Cynthia, do not trouble me; Straight will I thy Endymion's story write, To which thou hastest me on day and night. You light-skirt stars, this ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... milk-white heifer for thy fee.' 'Go, stranger,' cries the clown, 'securely on, 20 That stone shall sooner tell;' and showed a stone. The god withdrew, but straight returned again, In speech and habit like a country swain; And cries out, 'Neighbour, hast thou seen a stray Of bullocks and of heifers pass this way? In the recovery of my cattle join, A bullock and a heifer shall be thine.' The peasant quick replies, 'You'll find 'em there, In yon dark vale:' and in the vale they were. The double ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... and soon she had learned to play the accordion almost as well as he. So passed a happy hour, which the Good King Rene of Anjou would have envied them, while Mitchy-Mitch made friends with Duke, romped about his sister and her swain, and clung to the hand of the latter, at intervals, with fondest affection ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... am now in command of the 20th Brigade, composed of the 64th and 65th Ohio (the regiments raised by yourself) and the 13th Michigan and 51st Indiana Regiments. I have sent forward to Washington the name of Lt. D. G. Swain (65th Ohio) of Salem, O., for appointment as A. A. Gen. on my staff. He is an excellent officer, and his nomination has been approved by Gen. Buell. I will be particularly obliged to you if you will aid in securing his appointment ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... amazement, wondering how it could be possible that such poor stuff should pass muster as conversation, or coquetry, or gallantry, with the youths and maidens of to-day. But when I have observed further, instead of an offended fair, or a disillusioned swain, behold! two young heads close together, two young faces sparkling with smiles and satisfaction. And the older person, who would fatuously join in with a sensible remark, spoils all the enjoyment. The fact is, the secret of real companionship is not ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... sport that oft invites The Spanish maid, and cheers the Spanish swain: Nurtured in blood betimes, his heart delights In vengeance, gloating on another's pain. What private feuds the troubled village stain! Though now one phalanxed host should meet the foe, Enough, alas, in humble homes remain, To meditate 'gainst friends the ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... your eyes The body of a lover lies; In life he was a shepherd swain, In death a victim to disdain. Ungrateful, cruel, coy, and fair, Was she that drove him to despair, And Love hath made her his ally ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... beauty, chaste as frost, Once held in thrall the heart of lord and swain. While Cupid sped his strongest shafts in vain Thou didst not dream the price thy triumph cost, Or know thy charm would be forever lost, When Time with jealous wind or flood should stain Thy snowy brow in grime or part in twain Thy ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe
... from his saddle bending low, Just where the neck did to the shoulders grow, With his full force discharged a deadly blow. Not heads of poppies (when they reap the grain) Fall with more ease before the labouring swain, Than fell this head: It fell so quick, it did even death prevent, And made imperfect bellowings as it went. Then all the trumpets victory did sound, And yet their clangors in our shouts were drown'd. [A ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... undistinguishing in her favours, and whose darling employment is to increase the number of her admirers, is in the highest degree unnatural. Such was not the character of Imogen. She was artless and sincere. Her tongue evermore expressed the sentiments of her heart. She drew the attention of no swain from a rival; she employed no stratagems to inveigle the affections; she mocked not the respect of the simple shepherd with delusive encouragement. No man charged her with broken vows; no man could justly accuse her of ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... a rose Which any swain might joy to cull, Cried "How I'll paralyze the beaux When I put on my India mull!" Now let the heat of August day Be what it may—I'll not complain— I'll wear the mull, and put away ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... I doubt some happier swain Has gained my Jeanie's favor; If sae, may every bliss be hers, Tho' I can ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... wondrous quiet, composing a copy of verses, the first I ever made in my life; and I give them here, spelt as I spelt them in those days when I knew no better. And though they are not so polished and elegant as 'Ardelia ease a Love-sick Swain,' and 'When Sol bedecks the Daisied Mead,' and other lyrical effusions of mine which obtained me so much reputation in after life, I still think them pretty good for a humble ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dream. She agreed with everything he said; even carrying her new allegiance to the point of laughing a little at her own people: the layer cakes her mother made for the Sunday noonday dinner; the red-handed, freckled swain who called on her younger sister in the crisp, moonlighted winter evenings; and the fact that her ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... (male) lover, inamorato, beau, flame, spark, swain, suitor; (female) ladylove, mistress, inamorata, dulcinea, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... Norval. On the Grampian Hills My father feeds his flocks; a frugal swain, Whose constant cares were to increase his store, And keep his only son, myself, at home. For I had heard of battles, and I long'd To follow to the field some warlike lord: And heav'n soon granted what my sire deny'd. This moon, which rose last night, round as ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... choregraphic love-story, the two dancers representing an enamoured swain and his mistress. It is the old theme—'the quarrel of lovers is the renewal of love.' Enraptured gaze, coy side-look, gallant advance, timid retrocession, impassioned declaration, supercilious rejection, piteous ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... and many a swain That knows of his shafts made there; For Cupid spares naught of a deep heart-pain. Though love be all his care. And I think he should make a reflection or two, When he rests over there from his ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... no light matter to go up to a ghost, front face, full face, and look him in the eye; but what must it be when you have to go up to him backward, as that cutter's crew had to do while pulling their oars, leaving only Buck and the cox-swain to face him? They just couldn't do it, and at every stroke they would suddenly slew around on their thwarts and look at the old fellow, who seemed to them as big as an elephant, and just ready to clap on to them, boat and all, as soon as they ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... his own eyes, that he had been idling his time and neglecting the high duties which he had taken upon himself to perform. He should have spent this afternoon among the poor at St. Ewold's, instead of wandering about at Plumstead, an ancient, love-lorn swain, dejected and sighing, full of imaginary sorrows and Wertherian grief. He was thoroughly ashamed of himself, and determined to lose no time in retrieving his character, so damaged ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... assistance of our friend Warner Lewis. Poor fellow! never did I see one more sincerely captivated in my life. He walked to the Indian Camp with her yesterday, by which means he had an opportunity of giving her two or three love-squeezes by the hand; and like a true Arcadian swain, has been so enraptured ever since that he is company for ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... a king in byegone days That in his time wrought good laws, He did them make and full well hold, Him loved young, him loved old, Earl and baron, strong man and thane, Knight, bondman and swain, Widows, maidens, priests and clerks And ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... hear this," returned Mrs. Bloomfield, glancing her eyes, unconsciously to herself, however, towards Sir George Templemore, "and, Mr. Powis, you, who I believe are a European, will learn humility in the avowal. Do you object to your swain that he is ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... extremes. He then that is not furnish'd in this sort Doth but usurp the sacred name of knight, Profaning this most honorable order, And should, if I were worthy to be judge, Be quite degraded, like a hedge-born swain That doth presume to ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... part in Cupid's pranks. Though the little god himself goes naked, he never allows his votaries to follow suit. That story of Venus unadorned appearing from the sea is only a fairy-tale—such a sight would have made a lovelorn swain take to the woods, and would have been interesting only to the anatomist or a member of the life class. The wicket, the lattice, the lace curtain, the veil and mantilla, are all secondary sexual manifestations. In rural districts where honesty ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... very dreadful memories for me; but I do not know that more than once or twice at the time I had any such feeling. There were some pretty passages in the play that distracted me altogether, and a song or two, of which I remember very well one sung by a Nymph, and answered by her swain with his shepherds, of ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... pastures gay; And thinks of friends and parents left behind, Of sylvan revels, dance, and festive song; And hears the faint reed swelling in the wind; And his sad sighs the distant notes prolong! Thus went the swain, till mountain-shadows fell, And dimm'd the landscape to his aching sight; And must he leave the vales he loves so well! Can foreign wealth, and shows, his heart delight? No, happy vales! your wild rocks still shall hear His pipe, light sounding on the morning ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... spoil'd) Would use him like a younger child; And, after long computing, found 'Twould come to just five thousand pound. The Queen of Love was pleased, and proud, To see Vanessa thus endow'd: She doubted not but such a dame Through every breast would dart a flame, That every rich and lordly swain With pride would drag about her chain; That scholars would forsake their books, To study bright Vanessa's looks; As she advanced, that womankind Would by her model form their mind, And all their conduct would be tried By her, as an unerring guide; Offending daughters oft would hear Vanessa's ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... first time she had shown any appreciation of her swain's attentions. She expressed the normal, feminine point of view that her friend had been looking for, and as soon as she heard it Susan adroitly vaulted to the ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... out of Pall Mall into a side street, when whom should I strike against but her false swain! It was my fault, but I hit out at him savagely, as I always do when I run into anyone in the street. Then I looked at him. He was hollow-eyed; he was muddy; there was not a haw left in him. I never saw a more abject young man; ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... actress detected the effect she had produced. She was naturally pleased at it, and coming up to Godolphin, she touched his shoulder, and with a smile rendered still more brilliant by the rouge yet unwashed from the dimpled cheeks, said—"Well, most awkward swain? no flattery ready for me? Go to! you won't suit ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "I married Maggie Swain, a former sweetheart, as soon as I got back to Plymouth. We had two children. She lived six years. I then married Mary Davenport of Little Washington. We had seven children. She died and I come to Raleigh and married Maggie Towel. We had no children ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... going to leave us? It seems certain that Anna's heart is not on the farm," she said to herself. "It was there right enough when she went home last night, but it is clear that some one has stolen it during the night. Anna is helplessly lovesick. I must find out who it is. The swain must be found and induced to come and join, or supervise, our squatters. We cannot let him take her away, for what will the homestead be without Anna? I was looking forward to her marrying on the farm and giving her a superior cottage so that other Kafir ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... Dick addressed as Saccharissa in many verses of his composition, and without whom he said it would be impossible that he could continue to live. He vowed this a thousand times in a day, though Harry smiled to see the love-lorn swain had his health and appetite as well as the most heart-whole trooper in the regiment: and he swore Harry to secrecy too, which vow the lad religiously kept, until he found that officers and privates were all taken into Dick's confidence, and had the ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... part of the country, can be exercised in the slaveholding States only at the peril of our lives. Slavery cannot bear one ray of light, or the slightest criticism. "The character of Slavery," says Gov. Swain, of North Carolina, "is not to be discussed"—meaning at the South. But he goes beyond this, and adds, "We have an indubitable right to demand of the Free States to suppress such discussion, totally and promptly." ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... What looks!—what joy!—and was then all deceit? Did he but mock me, when with tears of rapture He bathed my hand; knelt; sighed; as had his voice By pleasure been o'erwhelmed, a while was silent; But soon came words, sweet as those most sweet kisses Which grateful Venus gave the swain whose care Brought back her truant doves!——So sweet, so sweet—— Distrust, herself, must have believed those words. Oh! ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... of the people who now travel on the railroad. The stone figures are not a whit more cold and silent than these persons, who used to be, in the old coucous, so talkative and merry. The prattling grisette and her swain from the Ecole de Droit; the huge Alsacian carabineer, grimly smiling under his sandy moustaches and glittering brass helmet; the jolly nurse, in red calico, who had been to Paris to show mamma her darling Lolo, or Auguste;—what merry companions used one to find squeezed ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... difference," said I to my wife, after we had departed, "between a Welshman and an Englishman of the lower class. What would a Suffolk miller's swain have said if I had repeated to him verses out of Beowulf or even Chaucer, and had asked him about ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... had been separated some time, when a marriage-bargain was broken off, because the lover could not obtain from the girl's father a certain brown filly as part of her dowry. The damsel, after the lapse of some weeks, met her swain at a neighbouring fair, and the flame of love still smouldering in his heart was re-illumined by the sight of his charmer, who, on the contrary, had become quite disgusted with him for his too obvious preference of profit to true affection. He addressed her softly in a tent, and asked ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... which was supposed to be echoed back by her lover afar in the mountains. To produce this pleasing illusion, one of the merry Swiss boys ascended the staircase, and hid himself deep in the corridors of the hotel. All went well up to the last verse. Promptly and truly the swain echoed his sweetheart's call; softly it floated down to us—down from the imaginary pasture and across the imaginary valley. But as the maiden challenged for the last time, as her voice lingered on the last note of the last verse . . . There hung a Swiss cuckoo-clock in the porter's ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was in his mind to speak such? Was it not incumbent on him to make her understand why he threw from him such golden hopes? And then, as to her, he did not flatter himself that she loved him—at least, not much; but yet it might be well to let her know that she was now at liberty to love any other swain. So at last he once more went his ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... and then, after a long and meditative pinch of snuff, resumed his work. The sun went down and the light faded slowly; distant voices sounded close on the still evening air, snatches of hoarse laughter jarred upon his ears. It was clear that the story of the imprisoned swain was giving pleasure ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... tale was rude, but pleased rude men; And clamorous many a clown grew, when The rebeck ceased to thrill: Ploughboy and neatherd, shepherd swain, Gosherd and swineherd,—all were fain To prove their ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... sir," answered the boat-swain; "a box has driven down upon the bag, and there's a tight jam. I got hold of the neck of the bag, and pulled like a horse, but it wouldn't ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... light, the Lovers lamp, the Swains delight, A ruined world, a globe burnt out, a corpse upon the road ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... off your head entirely. You seem to want to make me look utterly foolish! I sigh! Am I such an imbecile? I'm not a lovelorn swain. ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... towering rage. "Marry a shocking creature for money!" she raved; "and this was what all his passionate protestations of love amounted to!" Sitting down in her anger she poured out the vials of her wrath on her treacherous swain, ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... good friend," said the king to the old shepherd, "what fair swain is that talking with your daughter?" "They call him Doricles," replied the shepherd. "He says he loves my daughter; and, to speak truth, there is not a kiss to choose which loves the other best. If young Doricles can get her, she shall bring him ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... crystal, sparkling sapphire, perfection! Come, you must have your swimming lesson. Forget the cheerful swain,—behold the ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... have been, Since both of us lost our Eden days, I never rashly tried to glean; And know not if your childhood ways Were trodden by your maiden feet When, flushed and shy with hope and fear, You went your loitering swain to meet And listen to sounds you loved to hear! But if sometimes your heart was fain Along our honeysuckle lane Again to roam, in gracious flight Your memory would have found delight In wandering there a child again! And if ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... hosts with kindred weapons rush To battle, nor did the high gods deem it hard That twice Emathia and the wide champaign Of Haemus should be fattening with our blood. Ay, and the time will come when there anigh, Heaving the earth up with his curved plough, Some swain will light on javelins by foul rust Corroded, or with ponderous harrow strike On empty helmets, while he gapes to see Bones as of giants from the trench untombed. Gods of my country, heroes of the soil, And Romulus, and Mother Vesta, thou Who Tuscan ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... able to talk to him she inquired about his bride, and the enamoured swain raved to her unceasingly of Albina's ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... ready-made will do as poetry, and that you can no more take a short cut to Parnassus by spelling good "guid" and liberally using "ava," than you can execute the same journey by calling a girl a nymph and a boy a swain. The reason why Burns is a great poet, and one of the greatest, is that he seldom or never does this in Scots. When he takes to the short cut, as he does sometimes, he usually "gets to his English." Of Hogg, who wrote some charming things ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... gallant, swain, flame, cicisbeo, admirer, suitor, inamorato; dandy, popinjay, dude, fop, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... hours before I got back and my temper had failed to improve with age, havin' had a rough day at the ball park. We played a double-header with the Phillies and lost a even two games. Both the scores sounded more like Rockefeller's income tax than anything else. Iron Man Swain pitched the first game for us and before five innin's had come and went, I found out that the only thing iron about him was his nerve in drawin' wages as a pitcher. Everybody connected with the Philly team but the batboy got a hit and from the way them guys run around the bases it looked ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... unconcern; "is not that the name of your former protege, the love-stricken swain who ventured to aspire to the hand of your ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... plight . . . that her acquaintances, of which she had many on board, could scarcely recognise her. Upon being interrogated, she declared she had, unknown to all on board, concealed herself in the hold the day before the vessel sailed, and that her swain knew nothing of the step she had taken. As it was now inconvenient to return to put her on shore, and as the man consented to share his rations with her, she was allowed to remain; but in a very short time heartily repented ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... the instant that dear image led my imagination captive! I seemed to see once more the meadow before our house, the tall lime-trees in the garden, the clear pond where the ducks swain, the blue sky dappled with white clouds, the sweet-smelling ricks of hay. How those memories—aye, and many another quiet, beloved recollection—floated through my mind ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... Charles for continuation of the work, Janice walked to another part of the garden, apparently quite heedless of Philemon. Her swain of course followed, and the moment they were well out of hearing of the servant, Janice turned upon ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... assembled to await the intended bridegroom says: 'Look an' the wenches ha' not found un out, and do present un with a van of rosemary and bays, enough to vill a bow-pott or trim the head of my best vore-horse; we shall all ha' bride-laces and points, I see.' And again, a country swain assures his sweetheart at their wedding: 'We'll have rosemary and bayes to vill a bow-pott, and with the same I'll trim the vorehead of my best vore-horse'—so that it would seem the decorative use was not confined to the bride, ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... at Cideville, in Seine Inferieure (1850), came under the eye of the law, because a certain shepherd injudiciously boasted that he had caused them by his magic art. {123a} The cure, who was the victim, took him at his word, and the shepherd swain lost his situation. He then brought an action for defamation of character, but was non- suited, as it was proved that he had been the fanfaron of his own vices. In Froissart's amusing story of Orthon, that noisy sprite was hounded on ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... disapprobation; But master and man took no heed of their sorrow, And Miss was to die the day after the morrow. The rest, who were all in her fate interested, Now offered such comfort as pity suggested: "They won't hurt you much," simpered one tender swain, "I've heard that this killing is scarce any pain; Pray take some more wash, and this cabbage-stalk bite." "No, thank you," said Piggy, "I've ...
— Surprising Stories about the Mouse and Her Sons, and the Funny Pigs. - With Laughable Colored Engravings • Unknown
... sister's dwelling and the provincial capital lay some twenty miles of alternate ridges of gravel and morass. Had he been a young man he might have walked safely and speedily under the guidance of some frugal swain or tripping dairymaid returning from market. Had he been a wise man he would have hired a nag, and trotted soberly along such bridle-roads as he found. But he was neither a young nor a wise man. His better ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... last person considered. Her brother and sister were aware of it, and attained a sort of station by making a peg of it on which to air the miserably ragged old fiction of the family gentility. Her sister asserted the family gentility by flouting the poor swain as he loitered about the prison for glimpses of his dear. Tip asserted the family gentility, and his own, by coming out in the character of the aristocratic brother, and loftily swaggering in the little skittle ground respecting seizures by the ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... you how?" And Cameron jumped up and fell on one knee before Patty, with a comical expression of a make-believe love-sick swain. ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... of all those innocent amusements which cheer the laborer's toil, and, as it were, put their shoulders to the wheel of life, and help the poor man along with his load of cares. Hence I saw with no small delight the rustic swain astride the wooden horse of the carrousel, and the village maiden whirling round and round in its dizzy car; or took my stand on the rising ground that overlooked the dance, an idle spectator in a busy throng. It was just where the village ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... headlong into its bosom. At last they returned again; and we soon became aware that the stroll had not been without great results to both; since Mrs. Rose affected to be laboring under a high degree of emotion, and retired to the privacy of her apartment, while old Bill was by no means the dolorous swain of a few hours before, but, making his way among us, with his wide mouth stretching its best, proceeded formally to shake hands with one and all as though he had finally got back from a long and arduous voyage; and then, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... mountain. But their infant coats are now wet with rain, and their sports are over. Shivering, they follow the shepherd with their bleating dams. And now, adorned with rustic lays and bleeding hearts, the swain sends to his favourite maid the mysterious valentine. The birds choose their mates; it is the season of connubial joys. Mild then ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... neighborhood; scarce an hour in the day but a knot of them might be seen wagging their white caps together round her door, while the poor woman made some piteous recital. The daughter, too, was fain to seek for more frequent consolation from the stolen interviews of her favored swain, Dirk Waldron. The delectable little Dutch songs with which she used to dulcify the house grew less and less frequent, and she would forget her sewing, and look wistfully in her father's face as he sat pondering by the fireside. Wolfert caught her eye one day fixed on him thus anxiously, and ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... fairer could not be, Nor crueller, than she. Still charming in her sternest mien,— E'en when her haughty look debarr'd,— What had she been to lover in The fortress of her kind regard! Daphnis, a high-born shepherd swain, Had loved this maiden to his bane. Not one regardful look or smile, Nor e'en a gracious word, the while, Relieved the fierceness of his pain. O'erwearied with a suit so vain, His hope was but to die; No power ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... as the sparkle of a glancing star I shoot from heaven, to give him safe convoy, As now I do. But first I must put off These my sky-robes, spun out of Iris' woof, And take the weeds and likeness of a swain That to the service of this house belongs, Who, with his soft pipe and smooth-dittied song, Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar, And hush the waving woods; nor of less faith And in this office of his mountain watch Likeliest, and nearest to the present aid Of this ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... "Tell me, jealous-paced swain, What avail thy idle arts, To divide united hearts? Love, like the wind, I trow, Will, where it listeth, blow; So, prithee, peace, for ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Jill, the beauteous maid, Danced at his side, and took his proffered aid. Together went they, pail in hand, and sang Their love songs till the leafy valleys rang. Alas! the fount scarce reached, the heedless swain Turned on his foot and slipped and turned again. Then fell he headlong: and the woe-struck maid, Jealous of his fell doom, a moment stayed And watched him; then to the depths she rushed And shared his fate. Behold them, mangled, crushed. Weep, oh my muse! for Jack, for ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... of song and plaint and ecstasy amain, And to the setting forth in words of charms I find thee fain. Can it be love hath wounded thee or art thou shot with shafts? For sure these fashions but belong unto a smitten swain. Ho, pour me out full cups of wine and sing me eke, in praise Of Tenam, Suleyma, Rebaeb,[FN35] a glad and lovesome strain! Yea, let the grape-vine's sun[FN36] go round, whose mansion is its jar, Whose East the cupbearer and West my thirsty ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... of one of the old impoverished Spanish grant holders whose leagues and cattle had been mortgaged to the Hoovers, who now retained the son to control the live stock "on shares." "It looks kinder ez ef he might hev an eye on that poorty little gal when she's an age to marry," suggested a jealous swain. For several days the girl submitted to her school tasks with her usual languid indifference and did not again transgress the ordinary rules. Nor did Mr. Brooks again refer to their hopeless conversation. But one afternoon he noticed that in the ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... thundering, hurled forth the relentless growl of the bassoon,—a very mountain of sound, which crushed all before it, and made the shuddering timbers crack and reel. A pensive flute vainly poured, in swift recurring gushes, its rhythmic oil upon the roaring billows. From some melodious swain came a freakish fiddling, which leaped and danced like mad, now here, now there, like an audible will-o'-the-wisp. A dolorous whistle chimed harmonies, and with regular sibilation came to time, quavering out the chromatic moments of this nasal hour. High ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... the moon, and to hear you yourself and none other, fairest of all my captives, touch the lute, or whatever you may call it, to that same air you and I, fair maid, heard long ago together at a lattice under the Spanish moon. A swain touched then his lute, or whatever you may call it, to his Dulcinea. Here 'tis in the reverse. The fair maid, having no option, shall touch the lute, or whatever you call it, to John Doe, Black Bart, or whatever you may call him; who is her captor, who feels ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... morning to visit the despairing shepherdess, and was handsomely rewarded for the enlivening tidings with which he blessed her ears. Sick as she was, she could not help laughing heartily at the contrivance, in consequence of which her swain's assent had been obtained, and gave the lieutenant ten guineas for Tom Pipes, in consideration of the part he ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Sidselil, I've this to complain of thee, That thou hast ta'en another swain And broke thy ...
— The Dalby Bear - and Other Ballads • Anonymous
... and documents. This he had always lightened by characteristic levity and sarcastic comments on the private revelations of the contents. The rough, ill-spelt letter of the miner to his wife, inclosing a draft, or the more sentimental effusion of an emigrant swain to his sweetheart, with the gift of a "specimen," had always received due attention at the hands of this elegant humorist. But the operation was conducted to-night with business severity and silence. The two leaders sat opposite ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... this time Lord Hunsdon was talking into Anne's ear and she could hear nothing of the conversation opposite, although now and again she caught a syllable from a low toneless voice. But his first agony was passed as well as her own, and she endeavoured to forget him in her swain's comments upon the political news arrived with the packet that afternoon. When tea was over and Miss Bargarny, who cultivated liveliness of manner, had engaged the poet in a discussion upon the relative ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... my Heart in favour of him. Sir, Your Opinion and Advice in this Affair, is the only thing I know can turn the Ballance; and which I earnestly intreat I may receive soon; for till I have your Thoughts upon it, I am engaged not to give my Swain a final Discharge. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... lord, lady; male, female; man, woman; master, mistress; Mister, Missis; (Mr., Mrs.;) milter, spawner; monk, nun; nephew, niece; papa, mamma; rake, jilt; ram, ewe; ruff, reeve; sire, dam; sir, madam; sloven, slut; son, daughter; stag, hind; steer, heifer; swain, nymph; uncle, aunt; wizard, witch; youth, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... he never die, but dying lives, And doth himself with sorrow new sustain, That death and life at once unto him gives, And painful pleasure turns to pleasing pain; There dwells he ever, miserable swain, Hateful both to himself and every wight; Where he, through privy grief and horror vain, Is waxen so deformed, that he has quite Forgot he was a man, and Jealousy ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... Young maidens decked with gems and gold, Flock to the gardens blithe and gay To spend their evening hours in play. No lover in the flying car Rides with his love to woods afar. In kingless lands no wealthy swain Who keeps the herd and reaps the grain, Lies sleeping, blest with ample store, Securely near his open door. Upon the royal roads we see No tusked elephant roaming free, Of three-score years, whose head and neck Sweet tinkling bells of silver deck. We hear no more the glad applause ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... were together a good deal during that week. Anticipating her arrival, the young man's ardent imagination had again fanned what he delighted to think of as his love for her into flame. During the last months of the winter he had not played the languishing swain as conscientiously as during the autumn. Like the sailor in the song "is 'eart was true to Poll" always, but he had broken away from his self-imposed hermitage in his room at the Snow place several times to attend sociables, entertainments and, even, dances. Now, when she returned he was ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... laughter, the humorous twinkle, with which Drayton writes at times. The subject is an [Greek: agon] or contest between two shepherds for the affections of a nymph called Lirope: Lalus is a vale-bred swain, of refined and elegant manners, skilled, nevertheless, in all manly sports and exercises; Cleon, no less a master in physical prowess, was nurtured by a hind in the mountains; the contrast between their manners ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... the gardener's passion grows; From oaths and threats he fell to blows; The stubborn brute the blows sustains, Assaults his leg, and tears the veins. Ah! foolish swain, too late you find That sties were for such ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... in another direction. She in turn may be obliged to use all her power to attract the one she desires to select. If she be a coquette, each one of many will think that he himself is the fortunate swain on whom her choice will fall. The doubts existing in these instances cause great excitement and amusement, and between the meetings pearls against rubies, diamonds against diamonds, and other precious stones are staked ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... beneath their loads, the raw-boned horses strain; A hundred sullen shovels claw and heave the sodden mass— There lifts no dust of scented moats, no cheery call of swain, Nor birds that pipe from border brush across the ...
— England over Seas • Lloyd Roberts
... Thither also stole puss, either in gratitude for past savoury benefactions, or in anticipation of future. But the lady of the house, frequently missing her favourite, and tracing her one day into the place of rendezvous, thus unluckily effected the discovery of cook and her swain. The damsel apprehending that such interruptions to their interviews might, from the gourmandizing propensities of the favourite, be frequent, determined to prevent them for ever; the very next time ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... I took occasion to notice, aggressively pretty in that hot red and black style that finds its warmest admirers in a class cultivated above that to which she belonged; and she was scorning and flouting her slow, perplexed swain with that over-measure of vehemence characteristic of a sex devoid ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... Every base swain in love will dare to do as much for his dear mistress' sake. He will fight and fetch, [5494]Argivum Clypeum, that famous buckler of Argos, to do her service, adventure at all, undertake any enterprise. And as Serranus ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... spectators, to those who cherish even a corruscation of mental light, speak volumes of information; and such it was that Eleanor cast upon John Ferguson. What was conveyed in that look we will not pretend to fathom; but simply affirm that its effect was an entire derangement of the love-sick swain's determination to forget the cause of his wretchedness, and a dispersion of every idea save the one ruling sentiment of love for her. Thus, in a moment, discretion was forgotten, and resolution cast to the wind; ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... turned in another direction at the signpost of a woman's face, and down the new vista the lover saw flowering meadows, silver streams, bowers of roses, and all the landscape of Arcadia. He was a piping swain and Diana a complaisant shepherdess; but they had not yet entered into the promised Arcadia, and might never do so unless Diana was as kindly as he wished ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... natures to their full potentiality, to learn to love many things we have not cared for. In general we ignore the joys that we have not ourselves experienced or imagined, and those which belong to a different realm from that of our temporary enthusiasms. A lovesick swain, an opium fiend, are utterly unable to respond to the lure of outdoor sport or the joy of the well-doing of work; these joys, though perhaps acknowledged as real possibilities for them, fail to attract their wills, touch no chord in them, have no influence on their choices. ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... rock is believed to be the work of Praxiteles. The relaxation of the figure and perfect repose of every limb is wonderful. The countenance has traits of individuality which led me to think it might have been a portrait, perhaps of some rude country swain. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... have entranced her, and certainly his conversational brilliancy was altogether in his favor, but beyond the glamour of the present, Melissa had the vision to appraise the possibilities of the future. Before finally committing herself to the hymeneal venture she required it of her swain that he produce and place in her capable hands for safe-keeping, first, the money required to purchase the license; second, the amount of the fee for the officiating clergyman; and third, cash sufficient to pay the expenses of ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
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