"Osier" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spirit of their faith. They worshipped the God of the thunder-storm, not the God of peace; and it was amidst the thunder-storm that their horrid rites appeared most horrid. When, illuminated by the lurid glare of the lightning, the gigantic osier figure filled with human beings sank into the flames—when the shouts of the multitude who stood in a dense circle around the spot, the frenzied chants of the druids, and the despairing shrieks of the dying victims, were drowned ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... These poor creatures were entirely naked, with the exception of a quantity of grass bound round the waist, and covering the thighs midway to the knees, perhaps. Each one carried two brown baskets, which, I have since been told, are made of a species of osier, woven with a neatness which is absolutely marvelous, when one considers that they are the handiwork of such degraded wretches. Shaped like a cone, they are about six feet in circumference at the opening, and I ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... and a collection of fine shoes made in Haiti. Next to this case was a display of coffee beans and an interesting exhibit of hats made from palm leaves and corn husks. The chairs were made from the osier, or water willow. In the rear was a cabin made from the natural woods imported from Haiti. The roof was covered with palm leaves. The entrance was draped with an American flag on the, left and the red and blue flag of Haiti on the right. This Haitian; flag was made entirely by hand. In the interior ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... with lips all ashen, He prayed—till back, with ghastlier rage and roar, The demon rout rushed, strung to fiercer passion, And crashed his osier door. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... ev, with a different caracter, is no less absur'd than j consonant, not call'd ij, with a different figure, as mejer for measure, as the French also use it, as je vou remercy. So osier, [h]osier, ...
— Magazine, or Animadversions on the English Spelling (1703) • G. W.
... I—but the interjection was equivocal—and, I think, wrong placed too—for the end of an osier which had started out from the contexture of the ass's panier, had caught hold of my breeches pocket, as he rush'd by me, and rent it in the most disastrous direction you can imagine—so ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... flowing, rich and full, crested with foam beneath the osier hedges. We hear it break with a sudden dash and splutter against the cliff parapets. And the mud-bank ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... that bunch of osier. Hold out thy pole. Let me see thine hands. Thou art but a straw, but, our Lady be my speed! Now hangs England on ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... fitting place it well might grace An honest farmer's dwelling These cornflowers mild and poppies wild, With others past my telling; The osier fine, the blossoming vine, The meadow-sweetening clover— All vagrant stuff, and like enough To ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... gods, they say, have all: not so! This have they—flocks on every hill, the blue Spirals of incense and the amber drip Of lucid honey-comb on sylvan shrines, First-chosen weanlings, doves immaculate, Twin-cooing in the osier-plaited cage, And ivy-garlands glaucous with the dew: Man's wealth, man's servitude, but not himself! And so they pale, for lack of warmth they wane, Freeze to the marble of their images, And, pinnacled on man's subserviency, Through the thick sacrificial haze discern Unheeding ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... operates far less injuriously in the case of pasture-land than in the highly-developed culture of the vine and olive. On an arable estate, according to Cato, the returns of the soil stood as follows in a descending series:—1, vineyard; 2, vegetable garden; 3, osier copse, which yielded a large return in consequence of the culture of the vine; 4, olive plantation; 5, meadow yielding hay; 6, corn fields; 7, copse; 8, wood for felling; 9, oak forest for forage to the cattle; all of which nine elements ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... became necessary for the magistrates to interfere to put a stop to the proceedings, by the capture of the ringleader of the party, from whose advice to his followers the most serious consequences were likely to ensue. At 12 o'clock, they assembled at a place called the Osier Bed, where every means were resorted to, to quell the disturbance, but without success. Sir William defied interruption to his men, and fired on the Rev. William Handley, of Herne Hill, who, with his brother, was assisting to take him into custody. They ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... of the osier grove! Wake, trembling, stainless, virgin dove! Wake, nestling of a parent's love! Let Moran see thine eyes. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various
... ridden to London before the siege. Well, afterward—I must confess it—the Abbot heard it himself, and oh! sore, sore was my penance. Before I had done with it my ribs showed through my skin and my back was like a red osier basket. There's only one thing I didn't tell them, because, after all, it is no sin to grub the earth off ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... filed after him through the open forest, moving rapidly, almost on a run, for half a mile, then swung sharply out to the right, where the trees grew slimmer and thinner, and plunged into a thicket of hazel and osier. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... through which the air is forced by the lungs. A framework of poplar beams, branches of trees, and reeds, having been constructed of the size of the intended raft, the inflated skins are tied to it by osier twigs. The raft is then complete and is moved to the water and launched. Care is taken to place the skins with their mouths upward, that, in case any should burst or require refilling, they can be easily reached. Upon the framework ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... made an effort, and accepted the Vice-Prefect's son's invitation to see the oil-making at a villa of theirs near the coast. The villa, or farm, is an old fortified, towered place, standing on a hillside among olive-trees and little osier-bushes, which look like a bright orange flame. The olives are squeezed in a tremendous black cellar, like a prison: you see, by the faint white daylight, and the smoky yellow flare of resin burning in ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... fly me, more beauteous than a watered garden. {And yet} thou, the same Galatea, {art} wilder than the untamed bullocks, harder than the aged oak, more unstable than the waters, tougher than both the twigs of osier and than the white vines, more immoveable than these rocks, more violent than the torrent, prouder than the bepraised peacock, fiercer than the fire, rougher than the thistles, more cruel than the pregnant she-bear, more deaf than the ocean waves, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... was up so early, while you were all in bed, finding May-roses for you, with the May-dew on them. And if your father and mother will let us go, I'll take you up the river to the osier island; or you shall ride my Ruby, and we'll go off a long, long way into the country, us three, and have dinner in a new place, where you have never been. Because ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... followed by two carts for carrying the money of the expedition. The whole of this capital amounted to about one hundred and fifty dollars, in the form of hundreds of thousands of the copper coins of the country, made with holes in their centres and strung by the thousand upon osier twigs. This is the only money which circulates in the agricultural portions of China, and a "barbarian" has to give a pound weight of them for a couple of eggs. The country soon began to become hilly, with the mountains of Mongolia visible in the distance. Trains of camels ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale; And, arching proud his neck, with oary feet Bears forward fierce, and guards his osier ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... infinite leisure and repose of nature. All laborers must have their nooning, and at this season of the day, we are all, more or less, Asiatics, and give over all work and reform. While lying thus on our oars by the side of the stream, in the heat of the day, our boat held by an osier put through the staple in its prow, and slicing the melons, which are a fruit of the East, our thoughts reverted to Arabia, Persia, and Hindostan, the lands of contemplation and dwelling-places of the ruminant nations. ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... themselves, and doubt If they be in it or without; And for this shade, which therein shines Narcissus-like, the sun too pines. Oh! what a pleasure 't is to hedge My temples here in heavy sedge; Abandoning my lazy side, Stretched as a bank unto the tide; Or, to suspend my sliding foot On the osier's undermining root, And in its branches tough to hang, While at ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... no harm to make just one, now you've spoken of it," said Theodora. So the knife being opened, I was instructed how to cut a stick of green osier, or maple, shape the end, cut and loosen the bark; and having slipped the bark off, how further to make the requisite notches, so that the hollow cylinder of bark being replaced, there would be a whistle of ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... some time before I shall get her to have a clear view of me behind her defences; but an hour's an age with a woman. Clotilde? I wager I have her on her knees in half an hour! These notions of duty, and station, and her fiddle-de-dee betrothal to that Danube osier with Indian-idol eyes, count for so much mist. She was and is mine. I swear to strike to her heart in ten minutes! But, madam, if not, you may pronounce me incapable of conquering any woman, or of taking an absolute impression of facts. I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... woods" of willow on the river Thames and the Cam are well known. They are small islands planted entirely with willows, and are called osier-holts. ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... He yelled, and flung them aside like children, but made no attempt at escape, for, in truth, he knew not what he did. The sheriff, one of the most powerful and athletic men to be found in the province, was turned about and bent like an osier in his hands. His words, when the fury of despair permitted his wild and broken cries to become intelligible, were now for life—only life upon any terms; and again did he howl out his horrors of death, hell, and judgment. Never was such ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... until they stopped to dine in some ever- lastingly-green garden, needing no matter-of-fact identification here; and then the tide obligingly turned—being devoted to that party alone for that day; and as they floated idly among some osier-beds, Rosa tried what she could do in the rowing way, and came off splendidly, being much assisted; and Mr. Grewgious tried what he could do, and came off on his back, doubled up with an oar under his chin, being not assisted at all. Then there was an interval of rest under boughs (such rest!) ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... the journey; 2d, the residence; and 3d, the return; will form the most proper and perspicuous division. 1. I climbed Mount Cenis, and descended into the plain of Piedmont, not on the back of an elephant, but on a light osier seat, in the hands of the dextrous and intrepid chairmen of the Alps. The architecture and government of Turin presented the same aspect of tame and tiresome uniformity: but the court was regulated with decent and splendid oeconomy; and I was introduced ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... burned.... At LOMME every one was forced to work: the Saxon Kdnt. Schoper announced that all women who did not obey within 24 hours would be interned: all the women obeyed. They were employed in the making of osier-revetement two metres high for the trenches. The men were forced to put up barbed wire near Fort Denglas, two kltrs. from the front. A few days after the evacuation of ENNETIERES the Uhlans shot a youth, ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... unpretentious bent. These having risen to a very fair distance toward the sky, come down again, scarcely so much from a doubt of their merits, as through affection to their native land. In summer they hang like a permanent shower of green to refresh the bright water; and in winter, like loose osier-work, or wattles ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... form of the fugitive; hence, the route taken by Thenardier still remains rather inexplicable. In two manners, flight was impossible. Had Thenardier, spurred on by that thirst for liberty which changes precipices into ditches, iron bars into wattles of osier, a legless man into an athlete, a gouty man into a bird, stupidity into instinct, instinct into intelligence, and intelligence into genius, had Thenardier invented a third mode? No one has ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... wit so gross to be caught by that palpable device. But casting about in his mind all the ways which he could contrive for escape (no less than all their lives depending on the success), at last he thought of this expedient. He made knots of the osier twigs upon which the Cyclop commonly slept; with which he tied the fattest and fleeciest of the rams together, three in a rank, and under the belly of the middle ram he tied a man, and himself last, wrapping himself fast with both his hands in the rich wool of one, the fairest ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... skilful shoving and advancing, some forty or fifty miles, on his new or French side of the Rhine, finds the French drawn up at Crefeld (June 23d); 47,000 of them VERSUS 33,000: in altogether intricate ground; canal-ditches, osier-thickets, farm-villages, peat-bogs. Ground defensible against the world, had the 47,000 had a Captain; but reasonably safe to attack, with nothing but a Clermont acting that character. Ferdinand, I can ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... Apollo twisted strong withes with his hands meaning to bind Hermes with firm bands; but the bands would not hold him, and the withes of osier fell far from him and began to grow at once from the ground beneath their feet in that very place. And intertwining with one another, they quickly grew and covered all the wild-roving cattle by the will of thievish Hermes, so that Apollo ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... wind between them glide the little boats. The young Britons take to the element like young ducks. Many a "tall admiral" has commenced his "march over the mountain wave" among these water-lilies and hedges of osier. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... forest culture, little is said of the willow, which forms a very interesting department. The white willow, Salix Candida, is often used for coarse work. S. Vinnunatis and S. Russelliana, are the most commonly used in the Eastern United States, under the name of Osier, or basket willow, and S. Forbyana, a variety of S. rubra, or the red willow is often used for fine work. In the Editor's recent visit to the Northwest a number of fine species were noted which would evidently be worth introducing ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... which the crystals sparkle are only brambles, and that big rosette of rusty red and fluffy white is the New Jersey tea. Those spreading, pointed fingers of coral with a background of dazzling white are the topmost twigs of the red osier dogwood. The strip of shrubs with graceful spray, now bowed in beauty by the river's brink, is a group of young red birches, and this bunch of downy brown twigs, two feet above the snow, sparkling with frost particles, is the downy viburnum. The great tangle of vine and lace work mixed with snow ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... have great plenty of them about Bemarton, &c. near Salisbury, where the osier beds doe yield four pounds per ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... the tempest of conflicting sensations within me made it difficult for me to maintain even the appearance of composure. On entering my apartment at the hotel the first thing that met my eyes was a large gilt osier basket, filled with fine fruit and flowers, placed conspicuously ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... furnish'd around, Seem'd bundles of lances which garlands had bound. * * * * * The moon on the east oriel shone, Through slender shafts of shapely stone, By foliated tracery combined; Thou would'st have thought some fairy's hand 'Twixt poplars straight the osier wand In many a freakish knot had twined; Then framed a spell, when the work was done, And ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various
... are strange, deep lines on his forehead, and marked parentheses round his mouth which can be but the foot-prints of pain and thought. He could not see us in our secluded shelter and I could not make my mouth utter his name—he who had wrung my heart as a peasant twists an osier withe. ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... passed rapidly alongside the raft sweeping the frothing water from under her paddle wheels. The planks tossed up and down in the wash, and the osier branches fastening them together, groaned and scraped ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... the autumn, I could not help being much amused with those myriads of the swallow kind which assemble in those parts. But what struck me most was, that, from the time they began to congregate, forsaking the chimneys and houses, they roosted every night in the osier-beds of the aits of that river. Now, this resorting towards that element, at that season of the year, seems to give some countenance to the northern opinion (strange as it is) of their retiring under water. A Swedish naturalist is so much persuaded of that ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... affecting in these prompt and spontaneous offerings of Nature than in the most costly monuments of art; the hand strews the flower while the heart is warm, and the tear falls on the grave as affection is binding the osier round the sod; but pathos expires under the slow labor of the chisel, and is chilled among the cold conceits ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... became more and more serious. Should the raft be stopped, not only would the fugitives not reach Irkutsk, but they would be obliged to leave their floating platform, for it would be very soon smashed to pieces in the ice. The osier ropes would break, the fir trunks torn asunder would drift under the hard crust, and the unhappy people would have no refuge but the ice blocks themselves. Then, when day came, they would be seen by the Tartars, ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... sachems rose, casting off their black-and-white blankets, and each in turn planted branches of yellow willow, green willow, red osier, samphire, witch-hazel, spice-bush, and silver birch along the edge of the silent ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... bending in scowling meditation over an open scroll. Against the mud-plastered walls, the crimson splendor of his cloak and the glitter of his gold embroideries gave him the look of a tropical bird in an osier cage; while the fiery beauty of his face shone like a star in the dusk of the windowless cell. Days in the saddle and nights in the council had pared away every superfluous curve from cheek and chin, until there was not one line left that did not tell of impatient energy; and every spark of ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... in a most remarkable manner, for they collect a number of great twigs of osier, then with certain secret incantations they separate them from one another on particular days; and from them they learn clearly ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... Mister Tom Squirrel. He was afraid that he would lose one of his children. But at last the baby robins were tired enough to feel like resting. Little Sheldon was in the top of a cedar tree, Elizabeth was sitting in a green osier, and little Evelina was sitting on Mister Chipmunk's stump, but poor little Montgomery was still under the heavy nest, and neither Robert Robin nor Mrs. Robin could think of any ...
— Exciting Adventures of Mister Robert Robin • Ben Field
... Buprestes, Chrysomelae,[2] rival and even surpass the magnificent Dung-beetles in the matter of jewellery. At times we encounter splendours which the imagination of a lapidary would not venture to depict. The Azure Hoplia,[3] the inmate of the osier-beds and elders by the banks of the mountain streams, is a wonderful blue, tenderer and softer to the eye than the azure of the heavens. You could not find an ornament to match it save on the throats of certain Humming-birds and the wings of a ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... was described by Bishop Wordsworth immediately after his uncle's death, while every terrace-walk and flowering alley spoke of the poet's loving care. He tells of the "tall ash-tree, in which a thrush has sung, for hours together, during many years;" of the "laburnum in which the osier cage of the doves was hung;" of the stone steps "in the interstices of which grow the yellow flowering poppy, and the wild ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... was necessary, and Bob softly let himself down from the bank till his feet were level with the water, then taking hold of a stout osier above his head he bent it down, and then dropped slowly into the water, which came nearly ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... the garrison, full of courage and vigour, spreading cloths loose everywhere over the battlements to weaken the attacks of our weapons, and protected by shields strongly woven of osier, made a brave resistance, looking like figures of iron, since they had plates of iron closely fitting over every limb, which covered their whole ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... and was carried by the waves into the darkness. It was the tarred flask, kept afloat by its osier cover. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... throat. Craigy, craggy. Craik, the corn-crake, the land-rail. Crambo-clink, rhyme. Crambo-jingle, rhyming. Cran, the support for a pot or kettle. Crankous, fretful. Cranks, creakings. Cranreuch, hoar-frost. Crap, crop, top. Craw, crow. Creel, an osier basket. Creepie-chair, stool of repentance. Creeshie, greasy. Crocks, old ewes. Cronie, intimate friend. Crooded, cooed. Croods, coos. Croon, moan, low. Croon, to toll. Crooning, humming. Croose, crouse, cocksure, set, proud, cheerful. Crouchie, hunchbacked. Crousely, confidently. Crowdie, meal ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... out on a marsh eating raspberries. When he glanced up, a big black bear stood beside him. Robber Father broke off an osier twig and struck the bear on the nose. "Keep to your own ground, you!" he said; "this is my turf." Then the huge bear turned around and lumbered off ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... abroad on wrathful seas, Or often journeying landward; for in truth Enoch's white horse, and Enoch's ocean spoil In ocean-smelling osier, and his face, Rough-redden'd with a thousand winter gales, Not only to the market-cross were known, But in the leafy lanes behind the down, Far as the portal-warding lion-whelp, And peacock yew-tree of the lonely Hall, Whose ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... waxed fainter in his cheek. He had fallen to the ground outright, For rugged and dim was his onward track, But there came a spotted toad in sight, And he laughed as he jumped upon her back; He bridled her mouth with a silk-weed twist; He lashed her sides with an osier thong; And now through evening's dewy mist, With leap and spring they bound along, Till the mountain's magic verge is past, And the beach of sand ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... to commemorate the events connected with the locality; but the inscription is misleading in giving 879 (instead of 878) as the year when Alfred took refuge here, and in stating that he lay concealed for a whole year (instead of a few months). The neighbourhood abounds in osier and reed-beds, producing ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... the pitcher and set it down by the river bank. Then she waded into the water and stooped over the circle of cut reeds. She pulled half a dozen fine fish out of the water within the reeds, killing each as she took it out, and threading it on a long osier that she carried. Then she knotted the osier, hung it on her arm, picked up the pitcher, and turned to come back. And as she turned she saw the four children. The white dresses of Jane and Anthea stood out like snow against the dark forest background. She screamed and the pitcher fell, and ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... In the autumn, I could not help being much amused with those myriads of the swallow kind which assemble in those parts. But what struck me most was, that, from the time they began to congregate, forsaking the chimnies and houses, they roosted every night in the osier-beds of the sits of that river. Now this resorting towards that element, at that season of the year, seems to give some countenance to the northern opinion (strange as it is) of their retiring under water. A Swedish naturalist is so much persuaded of ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... deftest. If it be the good pleasure of the English lady Kalliope shall serve her day and night, doing in all things the bidding of the Queen wherein if Kalliope fail by one hair's breadth of perfect service, I, Stephanos the elder, her grandsire, will beat her with pliant rods fresh cut from the osier trees until the blood of full atonement flows ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... always mounts his mule and examines the traps. The captured animals are skinned, and the tails, which are a great dainty, carefully packed into camp. The skin is then stretched over a hoop or frame-work of osier twigs and is allowed to dry, the flesh and fatty substance being carefully scraped off. When dry it is folded into a square sheet, the fur turned inward, and the bundle, containing from about ten to twenty skins, lightly pressed and corded, ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... the waste ether in which they range: the green, sappy stem, the dew-bead that hung on it, the shape of a ripple were the same now as when Nineveh was a queen of civilization and men's flesh was reddening alive in osier cages over altar fires on Wiltshire downs. And all the sweetness, all the romance of an English midsummer night seized the heart of Lawrence, a nomad, a returned exile, and a man in love—as if he had ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... bank, Where grows the Willow and the Osier dank, My sliding Chariot stayes, Thick set with Agat, and the azurn sheen Of Turkis blew, and Emrauld green That in the channell strayes, Whilst from off the waters fleet Thus I set my printless feet O're the Cowslips Velvet head, That bends not as I tread, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... the bat's and beetle's dome, Shook, as the hunted owl flew hooting home. His breast was bronzed by many an eastern blast, And fourscore winters seem'd he to have past; His thread-bare coat the supple osier bound, And with slow feet he press'd the sodden ground, Where, as he heard the wild-wing'd Eurus blow, He shook, from locks as white, December's snow; Inured to storm, his soul ne'er bid it cease, But lock'd within him meditated peace. Father, I said—for silver hairs inspire, And oft I call the ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... smoothly rotating. So clear'd softly between and tooth-nipt even it ever 315 Onward moved; still clung on wan lips, sodden as ashes, Shreds all woolly from out that soft smooth surface arisen. Lastly before their feet lay fells, white, fleecy, refulgent, Warily guarded they in baskets woven of osier. They, as on each light tuft their voice smote louder approaching, 320 Pour'd grave inspiration, a prophet chant to the future, Chant which an after-time ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... before her stand, And, shivering cold, these piteous accents speak: "Pursue, dear wife, thy daily toils pursue, At dawn or dusk, industrious as before; Nor e'er of me one helpless thought renew, 135 While I lie weltering on the osier'd shore, Drown'd by the Kelpie's[47] wrath, nor e'er shall aid ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... he lay beside her to slip the pack straps over his shoulders. Then she drew toward her the little osier cage in which their only remaining carrier-pigeon rested secured by elastic bands, grasped the smaller sack with the ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... of osier, for the transport and measure of shingle-ballast. Supplied to the gunner for transport ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... be low on the hills, and every living thing will be laughing in its light. The great trees will have grown strong in it, the flowers will have brightened, and the river there, Leone, will be running so deep and clear, kissing the green banks and the osier beds, carrying with it the leaves and flowers that will fall on its bosom, and the garden will be filled with the flowers we love the best. You see that picture, too, ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... being one) of all the otters, and the number captured and killed in the last few years was mentioned. "Good otter-hounds," as an old writer observes, "will come chanting, and trail along by the river-side, and will beat every tree-root, every osier-bed, and tuft of bulrushes; nay, sometimes they will take the water and beat it like a spaniel, and by these means the otter can hardly escape you." The otter swims and dives with great celerity, and in doing the latter it throws up sprots, or air-bubbles, which enable ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... Southwards, below the bridge, the water meadows widen out past Sutton's farm. From the front windows of the Manor Farm house you see them, green between the brown trunks of the elms on the road bank. From the back you look out across orchard and pasture to the black, still water and yellow osier beds above the Mill. Beyond the water a double line of beeches, bare delicate branches, rounded head after rounded head, climbs a hillock in a steep curve, to part and meet again in a ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... name, but the English word, which is common, signifies "a twig, a flexible rod, usually a hurdle; . . . the original sense is something twined or woven together; hence it came to mean a hurdle, woven with twigs; Anglo-Saxon, watel, a hurdle." (Skeat.) In England the supple twigs of the osier-willow are used for making such hurdles. The early colonists found the long pliant boughs and shoots of the indigenous Acacias a ready substitute for the purpose, and they used them for constructing the partitions and outer-walls of the early houses, by forming ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... came to him at the dawn of the next day; she brought augers for boring and he made the beams fast. He built a raft, making it very broad, and set a mast upon it and fixed a rudder to guide it. To make it more secure, he wove out of osier rods a fence that went from stem to stern as a bulwark against the waves, and he strengthened the bulwark with wood placed behind. Calypso wove him a web of cloth for sails, and these he made very skilfully. Then he fastened the braces and the halyards and sheets, and he ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... feast down in the city, Philotherus, but in the country, delighting myself with the breath of the west wind; sufficient couch for me is a strewing of boughs under my side, for at hand is a bed of native willow and osier, the ancient garland of the Carians; but let wine be brought, and the delightful lyre of the Muses, that drinking at our will we may sing the renowned bride of Zeus, lady of ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... was half naked, wore a forlorn little petticoat of coarse woollen stuff, woven in alternate strips of brown and white, full of holes and very ragged. A sheet of rough writing paper, tied on by a shred of osier, served her for a hat. Beneath this paper—covered with pot-hooks and round O's, from which it derived the name of "schoolpaper"—the loveliest mass of blonde hair that ever a daughter of Eve could have desired, was twisted up, and held in place by a species of comb made ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... quantity of relics, which are also fully described, consisting of stone implements, pottery, cotton and feather cloth, osier and palmillo mats, yucca sandals, weaving sticks, ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... done I stuck all the ground without my wall, for a great length every way, as full with stakes or sticks of the osier-like wood, which I found so apt to grow, as they could well stand; insomuch that I believe I might set in near twenty thousand of them, leaving a pretty large space between them and my wall, that ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... progress, they made a breach in the old wall, and carted away the earth from the bottom of the mound. To prevent this, the Peloponnesians filled up the space thus caused with heavy masses of clay, rammed tightly into baskets of osier, which made a solid structure, much harder to remove than the loose earth. Then the Plataeans had recourse to another device: marking carefully the position of the mound, they ran a mine from the city under it, and as fast as the earth fell ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... was not a sound; but there was, and Ian's ear was attuned to catch it. The immense inarticulate whisper of night came to him. It came to him from the deserted parks, from the distant Cherwell flowing through its willow-roots and osier-islands, from the flat meadow-country beyond, stretching away to the coppices of the low boundary hills. It was a voice made up of many whispers, each imperceptible, or almost imperceptible in itself; whisper of water and dry reeds, of broken twigs and dry ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... multitude of darts, scattered [72] with incredible force, were an additional resource of the infantry. Their military dress, when they wore any, was nothing more than a loose mantle. A variety of colors was the only ornament of their wooden or osier shields. Few of the chiefs were distinguished by cuirasses, scarcely any by helmets. Though the horses of Germany were neither beautiful, swift, nor practised in the skilful evolutions of the Roman manege, several ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... Hamburg. The fruit is raised under glass. Pottery, cotton fabrics, spirits, straw hats and tea are produced in the district of Ponta Delgada; linen and woollen goods, cheese, butter, soap, bricks and tiles, in that of Angra; baskets, mats, and various ornamental articles made from straw, osier, and the pith of dried ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... swung along the pathway to the river. The old willow was full of small birds; they sat ruffling their feathers, and when Mike sprang into the boat they flew through the gray light, taking refuge in some osier-beds. And as he looked down stream he saw the night clouds dispersing in the wind. He pulled, making the boat shoot through the water for about a mile, then touched by the beauty of the landscape, paused to view it. Cattle lay in the long, moist meadows, harmonizing in their semi-unconsciousness ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... for his friend must be more than apparent to any one. They had reached the edge of the ice now, and Sylvia's hands were still in Jerry's, although they were not skating, but stood facing each other. A bush of osier, frozen into the ice, lifted its red twigs near them. Sylvia looked down at it, hesitating how to express her utter denial of any liking for the hilarious young man. Jerry misunderstood her pause and cried out: "Good God! Sylvia! Don't say ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... mountains, which afforded a luxurious feast to the mind of the naturalist, he often passed the day in the pursuit of his favourite science. He was sometimes accompanied in these little excursions by Madame St. Aubert, and frequently by his daughter; when, with a small osier basket to receive plants, and another filled with cold refreshments, such as the cabin of the shepherd did not afford, they wandered away among the most romantic and magnificent scenes, nor suffered the charms of Nature's lowly children to ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... ease, as his limbs in a bath. He felt himself so powerless against her, that he never essayed to struggle. She possessed him. Once or twice he attempted to firmly oppose her ruinous caprices; but she had made him pliable as the osier. Under the dark glances of this girl, his strongest resolutions melted more quickly than snow beneath an April sun. She tortured him; but she had also the power to make him forget all by a smile, a tear, or a kiss. Away from the enchantress, reason returned at intervals, ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... end of the vessel, smoking and minding his rudder. The driver was walking on the towing-path by the old grey horse. The motion of the boat was so smooth that we seemed to be lying still whilst villages and orchards and green banks and osier-beds went slowly by, as though the world were coming to show itself to us, instead of our going out ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... it so easy for those poor creatures to leave their homes, their working places! Some of them have been there thirty years. They are close to the two or three farms that employ them, close to the osier beds which give them extra earnings in the spring. If they were turned out there is nothing nearer than Murewell, and not a single cottage to be found there. I don't say it is a landlord's duty to provide more cottages than are wanted; but if the labour is wanted, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... they are under such influences. Mollusca live two hundred fathoms down in the Norwegian seas. The Siberian stag grows fat on the stunted growth of Altaian peaks. The Hedysarium thrives amid the desolation of Sahara. Tufts of osier and birch grow on the hot lips of volcanic Schneehalten. But good character and a useful life ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... gaining a livelihood. The work itself is a commonplace book of agriculture and domestic economy; its object is utility, not science: it serves the purpose of a farmer's and gardener's manual, a domestic medicine, herbal, and cookery book. Cato teaches his readers, for example, how to plant osier beds, to cultivate vegetables, to preserve the health of cattle, to pickle pork, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... was Stromovka. Here weeping willows trailed their weeds of daintiest green; here vigorous chestnut buds threw out their strong scent; here osier-beds were a living tangle of gold and crimson reflected brokenly in the lake where frogs made merry, the frogs being about the only wild animals left in the Stromovka. Things were very different in this park when it was known as ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... I, simpleton, deemed like this town of ours, Whereto we shepherds oft are wont to drive The younglings of the flock: so too I knew Whelps to resemble dogs, and kids their dams, Comparing small with great; but this as far Above all other cities rears her head As cypress above pliant osier towers. ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... bears us on. When the moon comes through the trailing willow boughs, I see your face, I hear your voice and the bird singing as we pass the osier bed. What are you whispering? Sorrow, sorrow. Joy, joy. Woven together, like reeds in moonlight. Woven together, inextricably commingled, bound in pain and ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf
... buries himself in deep sand, that he may escape the drag-net, and when it has scraped his back leaps nimbly into the waves and expresses by his gambols his joy for his deliverance. When the wrasse[797] finds that he is caught in an osier trap, he moves himself slowly backwards till he can leave his tail protruding, that one of his fellows, perceiving his capture, may pull ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... I stuck all the ground without my wall, for a great length every way, as full with stakes or sticks of the osier- like wood, which I found so apt to grow, as they could well stand; insomuch that I believe I might set in near twenty thousand of them, leaving a pretty large space between them and my wall, that I might have room to see an enemy, and they might have no shelter from the young ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... The RED-OSIER CORNEL or DOGWOOD (C. stolonifera), which has spread, with the help of running shoots, through the soft soil of its moist retreats, over the British Possessions north of us and throughout the United States from ocean to ocean, except at the extreme ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... do not bestow your chief care on the developement of this quality. Is she less gifted with strength of intellect, with calmness, or comprehensive understanding than man, employ the greater efforts to supply this defect. Let the solid preponderate over the merely ornamental. Plant not the pliant osier, but the firmer elm. Instil principles of severe reasoning, and form habits of connected thought. Is she rich in imagination? Madam de Stael tells us she is, that this is the chief of her faculties, and that "her sentiments ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... is less apt to rust. For fastening the gunwales to the crossboards use nails instead of screws, because the nails are not apt to loosen and come out. The ribs, which are easily made of long, slender switches of osier willow, or similar material, are next put in, but before doing this, two strips of wood (b, b, Fig. 3) should be bent and placed as in Fig. 3. They are used only temporarily as a guide in putting in the ribs, and are not fastened, the elasticity of the wood being sufficient ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... women split and peel the green rods, men and children with nimble fingers plait the white canes. All the basket-makers are themselves plaited into one co-operative association. From time immemorial Villaines had made baskets, the osier of the valley being of excellent quality. But the products could not be disposed of satisfactorily; they were bought by regraders, who beat down the prices of the wares, and the workmen had no means of seeking out the markets, in which to sell with full advantage to themselves. In 1845 an old cure, ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... by the winding of the river Ouse. Far on every side stretches a homely landscape, tilth and pasture, hedgerow and clustered trees, to where the sky rests upon the gentle hills. Slow, silent, the river lapses between its daisied banks, its grey-green osier beds. Yonder is the little town of St. Neots. In all England no simpler bit of rural scenery; in all the world nothing of its kind more beautiful. Cattle are lowing amid the rich meadows. Here one may loiter and dream in utter restfulness, whilst the great white ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... Nov. 4, 1767, after mentioning that he had seen swallows roosting in osier-beds by the river, says:—'This seems to give some countenance to the northern opinion (strange as it is) of their retiring under water.' White's Selborne, Letter xii. See ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... the plates themselves, and are hollowed out for the reception of a rod provided at its extremities with a winged nut and jam nut for passing them up close to one another. The plates, properly so called, are held apart by rubber bauds. The glass vessels are placed in osier baskets.—La Lumiere Electrique. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... fluttered a little, but it was rather in fear of her aunt's displeasure than of any mischance likely to happen to herself. She had been often to these osier beds, and had never encountered a living soul there, and she would soon reach the region of walls and gardens that adjoined the southern end of the bridge. So taking her basket on her arm, she pushed her way upwards from the ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... "An eel in an osier trap has more chance of freedom," said Wulf gloomily. "Let us at least be thankful that we are caged together—for how ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... hardens more and helps to bind The gaping veins, lest penetrating showers, Or fierce sun's ravening might, or searching blast Of the keen north should sear them. Well, I wot, He serves the fields who with his harrow breaks The sluggish clods, and hurdles osier-twined Hales o'er them; from the far Olympian height Him golden Ceres not in vain regards; And he, who having ploughed the fallow plain And heaved its furrowy ridges, turns once more Cross-wise his shattering ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... jamais eteinte, Sombre, que vous nommez l'Inquisition sainte; Quand j'ai pu voir comment Torquemada s'y prend Pour dissiper la nuit du sauvage ignorant, Comment il civilise, et de quelle maniere Le saint office enseigne et fait de la lumiere; Quand j'ai vu dans Lima d'affreux geants d'osier, Pleins d'enfants, petiller sur un large brasier, Et le feu devorer la vie, et les fumees Se tordre sur les seins des femmes allumees; Quand je me suis senti parfois presque etouffe Par l'acre odeur qui sort de votre auto-da-fe, Moi qui ne brulais ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... the fallen stems of trees; now we arrived at a wide one, to be crossed by means of a suspension bridge, which swung frightfully from side to side. It made me giddy as I watched those who first passed along it. It was composed of the tough fibres of the maguey, a sort of osier of great tenacity and strength, woven into cables. Several of these cables forming the roadway were stretched over buttresses of stone on either side of the bank, and secured to stout timbers driven into the ground beyond them. The ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... night, Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light; And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels: Non, ere the sun advance his burning eye, The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry, I must up-fill this osier cage of ours With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers. The earth, that's nature's mother, is her tomb; What is her burying gave, that is her womb: And from her womb children of divers kind We ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... through the elm-tree copse, Winding by the stream, light-hearted, Where the osier pathway leads— Past the boughs she stoops and stops: Lo! the wild swan had deserted, And a ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... growing dusk, and observing that the fish would no longer rise, he wound up his line, and again took to his oars. They soon reached the shore. Norman begged that he might be allowed to carry the fish, which the laird had strung through the gills with a piece of osier which he ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... very early at Niewiazy where they crossed the river, some on horseback, some upon bundles of osier. Everything went with such dispatch that Macko, Zbyszko, Hlawa and the Mazovian volunteers were astonished at the skilfulness of the people; only then they understood why neither woods, nor swamps, nor rivers could prevent Lithuanian expeditions. ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... if he knew we had made a domiciliary visit without getting any results?" remarked Peyrade as he helped Corentin into the osier vehicle. ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... to see Mr. Linden examine these things,—every name was familiar to him, every one called up some story or recollection. Alternating with these, came richer presents,—books and vases and silver; then from the poor people in and about Pattaquasset, a couple of corn husk mats, a nest of osier baskets. The children brought wild flowers and wild strawberries, the fishermen brought fish, till Mrs. Derrick said, "Child, we might as well begin ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... employed a woman to follow him about all day with a pail of water, assuring her that one drop (a purely homoeopathic remedy, the section would observe), placed upon his tongue, after death, would restore him. What was the obvious inference? That Thorn, who was marching and countermarching in osier beds, and other swampy places, was impressed with a presentiment that he should be drowned; in which case, had his instructions been complied with, he could not fail to have been brought to life again ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... for osier-work is pursued to some extent in this country, and might be greatly increased. At one fourth the present prices, it would pay as well as any other branch of agriculture. Some varieties will grow on land of little value for other purposes, and all on any good land. Willows will ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... the grease-laden atmosphere of the cavern, Kraken plaited a deformed skeleton out of osier rods and covered it with bristling, scaly, and filthy skins. To one extremity of the skeleton Orberosia sewed the fierce crest and the hideous mask that Kraken used to wear in his plundering expeditions, and to the other end she fastened the tail with twisted folds which the hero was wont to ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France |
