"Drear" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... has just set in from the north-east; a drenching rain begins to fall, the ships in the harbour ride ill at ease; the sudden gusts of wind, sweeping through the narrow streets of the city, lighted here and there by the sickly light of an old-fashioned lamp, bespread the scene with drear. At a second-story window, lighted by a taper burning on the sill, sits Franconia, alone, waiting the return of M'Carstrow. M'Carstrow is enjoying his night orgies! He cares neither for the pelting storm, the anxiety of his wife, nor the sweets ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... sun was visible, but it gave forth no lustre: a ring of watery and dark vapor girded the melancholy orb. Far at the entrance of the valley the wild fern showed red and faded, and the first march of the deadly winter was already heralded by that drear and silent desolation which cradles the winds and storms. But amidst this cheerless scene the distant note of the merry marriage-bell floated by, like the good spirit of the wilderness, and the student rather paused to hearken to the note than to survey the scene. ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a cold wind blows from the marshland near, And white things move, and the night grows drear, And they chatter and crouch ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... Belle, "Dear, how lucky!" and turns From her mirror to watch the flakes fall, Like the first rose of summer, her dimpled cheek burns! While musing on sleigh ride and ball: There are visions of conquests, of splendor, and mirth, Floating over each drear winter's day; But the tintings of Hope, on this storm-beaten earth, Will melt like the snowflakes away. Turn, then thee to Heaven, fair maiden, for bliss; That world has a pure fount ne'er ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... difficulty the danger and death and horrors of the time, and without effort all that was gracious and picturesque? Ah, Youth, there is no such wizard as thou! Give me but one touch of thine artist hand upon the dull canvas of the Present; gild for but one moment the drear and somber scenes of to-day, and I will willingly surrender an other life than the one that I should have thrown away ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... deep recess At length they reach a court obscure and lone; It seemed a drear and desolate wilderness, The blackened walls with ivy all o'ergrown; The night-bird shrieked her note of wild distress, Disturb'd upon her solitary throne, As though indignant mortal step should dare, So led, at such an hour, should ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... is drear Outside; there is no rest. But what can Ida fear, Shelter'd upon my breast? Heed not the storm-blast, beating wild, I love ...
— Primavera - Poems by Four Authors • Stephen Phillips, Laurence Binyon, Manmohan Ghose and Arthur Shearly Cripps
... never to have indulged my wishes, but have grown gray in the same dull manner in which I was brought up! Because I once venture a step beyond the drear monotony of my past life, and look around me to see whether there be not some new source of enjoyment ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Hagan continued, "for which we've pawned our lands, our relatives, and some of us our liberty. Please God there isn't one here that won't see a free Ireland! We've hammered it into their dull Saxon brains. It's been a long, drear night, but ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hungry seas they hound the hull, The sharks they dog the haglets' flight; With one consent the winds, the waves In hunt with fins and wings unite, While drear the harps in cordage sound Remindful wails ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... upon those drear cliffs that had so nearly proved her monumental pile and shuddered. It was as a ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... adoration to reach the understanding of this Principle! When human struggles cease, and mortals yield lovingly to the purpose of divine Love, there will be no more sickness, sorrow, sin, and death. He who pointed the way of Life conquered also the drear ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... body stretched on the mat. A trumpet sounds through the fog, 5 Dimmed are the stars in the sky; When the night is clear, how they twinkle! Lani-kaula's torches look double, The torches that burn for Kane. Ghostly and drear the walls of Waipio 10 At the endless blasts of Kiha-pu. The king's awa fails to console him; 'Tis the all-night conching of Kiha-pu. Broken his sleep the whole winter; Downcast and sad, sad and downcast, 15 At loss to find a brave ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... gracious Heaven! whene'er My unwash'd follies call for penance drear: But when more hideous guilt this heart infects, Instead of fiery coals upon my pate, O let a titled patron be my fate;— That fierce compendium of Egyptian pests! Right reverend dean, right honourable squire, Lord, marquis, earl, duke, prince,—or ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... spent in playing with Rosemary. She became dearer to me with each succeeding day. I knew I should miss her tremendously. I should even miss Jinko, who didn't like me but who no longer growled at me. The castle would be a very gloomy, drear place after they were out of it. I found myself wondering how long I would be able to endure the loneliness. Secretly I cherished the idea of selling the place if I could find a ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... soon as I was out of sight of Mr. Smith and Coles I sat down upon a rock on the shore to reflect upon our present position. The view seawards was discouraging; the gale blew fiercely in my face and the spray of the breakers was dashed over me; nothing could be more gloomy and drear. I turned inland and could see only a bed of rock, covered with drifting sand, on which grew a stunted vegetation, and former experience had taught me that we could not hope to find water in this island; our position here was therefore untenable, and but three plans presented themselves to me: ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... cold and chilly mist Broodeth o'er Winandermere, And the heaven-descended cloud hath kissed The still lake drear." ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... go through wet spring woods alone, Through sweet green woods with heart of stone, My weary foot upon the grass Falls heavy as I pass. The cuckoo from the distance cries, The lark a pilgrim in the skies; But all the pleasant spring is drear. I ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... heart with hope and terror moved. And thou hast heard of yore the Blatant Beast, And Roland's horn, and that war-scattering shout Of all-unarmed Achilles, aegis-crowned And perilous lands thou sawest, sounding shores And seas and forests drear, island and dale And mountain dark. For thou with Tristram rod'st Or ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fast through the midnight dark and drear, Through the whistling sleet and snow, Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept Towards the ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... god of slavery-the god we worship, has no use for such temples; public libraries are his prison; his civilization is like a dull dead march; he is the enemy of his own heart, vitiating and making drear whatever he touches. He wages war on art, science, civilization! he trembles at the sight of temples reared for the enlightening of the masses. Tyranny is his law, a cotton-bag his judgment-seat. But we pride ourselves that we are a respectable people-what ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... day departed, and suddenly a dark cloud mantled the heavens, and the moonless night was falling dismal and drear. Fabens was expected by sunset, and at the usual hour, Julia tripped to the wood-path with a light heart to meet him, and take his swinging hand in her own, as she was accustomed to do, and talk all the way to the house. Hastening on half a mile or more, she spied her ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... bright as the day, There where her knight in slumber lay; And in her lily hand was seen A band that seemed of the moonlight sheen. "We are one," she sang, as about his hair She twined it, and over her tresses fair. Beneath them the world lay dark and drear: But he felt the touch of her hand so dear, Uplifting him far above mortals' sight, While around him were shed her locks of light, Till a garden fair lay about him spread— And this was Paradise, ...
— Aslauga's Knight • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... blest, compared wi' me! The present only toucheth thee; But och! I backward cast my e'e On prospects drear! And forward, though I canna see, I guess ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... Commendatore Angelelli. Roma walked over to the window and leaned her face against the glass. Snow was still falling, and there were some rumblings of thunder. Sheets of light shone here and there in the darkness, but the world outside was dark and drear. Would David Rossi come to-night? She almost ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... each year the seasons shifted,—wet and warm and drear and dry; Half a year of clouds and flowers, half a ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... graves were clustered here; The wind wailed o'er them wild and drear:— Could souls rise higher to the Light When soaring from this ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... traveller soever wander here In quest of peace and what is best of pleasure, Let not his hope be overcast and drear Because I, Death, am here to fix the measure Of life, even in blameless Arcady. Bay, laurel, myrtle, ivy never sere, And fields flower-decorated all the year, And streams that carry secrets to the sea, And hills that hold ...
— Songs, Sonnets & Miscellaneous Poems • Thomas Runciman
... dictate, Without control of king, or state, Or Papal "bull," or legate's rod— Only accountable to God. On Sunday night he reached Dunbar. From darkened sky gleamed not a star; The way he travelled o'er was drear, Made doubly so by Scotchmen's fear. At his approach like sheep they fled, Made frantic by an awful dread Of red-hot irons, spear, and sword, Of breasts thrust thro', and bodies gored, Which they ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... of earth and sea and sky that were called beautiful, the skill in them was so perfect. Looking at them, one saw only the drear ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... earth it was—no living thing Moves in the iron landscape far or near, Saving, in raucous flight, the winter crow, Staining the whiteness with its ebon wing, Or silver-sailing gull, or 'mid the drear Rock cedars, like a summer soul astray, A lone red squirrel makes believe to play, Nibbling the ...
— The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... blossoms. The beautiful and tender hues of the young leaves and buds are rendered more lovely by being contrasted, as they now are, with the sober russet browns of the stems from which they shoot, and which still show the drear remains of the season that ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... must be owned, Upon the hills of Merion; Though chill and drear the prospect round, Delight and joy are not unknown; O who would e’er expect to hear ’Mid mountain bogs ...
— Ermeline - a ballad - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... are crushed and hearts are bleeding; Drear the fireside now, and alone; She, the best loved and the dearest, Far ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... wagon pounding along over the rough road at a rate which compelled the girl to hang on closely to keep her seat. The man beside her bounced about, and swore, but made no effort to touch her, or open conversation. The uncertainty, the fear engendered by her thought, the drear silence almost caused her to scream. She conquered this, yet ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... of wisdom rare Inspire my soul to do and dare, Across the distance wide and drear I will not reach to bring you near. Why cast ideal grace away To find you only common clay? The best of life and thought and speech Is that which lies—just out ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... peasant As he skirts some churchyard drear; And the goblins whisper pleasant Tales in Miss Rossetti's ear; Importuning her in strangest, Sweetest tones to buy their fruits:- O be careful that thou changest, ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... drear month of October, The leaves were all crisped and sere, Adown by the Tarn of Auber, In the misty mid regions ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... that wist not whence their comfort flowed, Whence fear was lightened of her fever-fit, Whence anguish of her life-compelling load. Yea, no man's head whereon the fire alit, Of all that passed along that sunset road Westward, no brow so drear, No eye so dull of cheer, No face so mean whereon that light abode, But as with alien pride Strange godhead glorified Each feature flushed from heaven with fire that showed The likeness of its own life wrought By strong transfiguration ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... dead their graves forsake upon this day, As we have seen doves mount with joyous grace, Escape an instant from their prison drear, Their coming brings us no repellent fear. Their mien is dreamy, passing sweet their face, Their fixed ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... The woods are drear, The breeze that erst so merrily did play, Naught giveth save a melancholy lay; Yet life's great lessons do not fail E'en ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... oaks in the drear Red eve of December are wind-swept and sere, Where a king by the stream in his agony lies, And the life of a land ebbs away ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... ills not I alone, He too our guest hath known, E'en as some headland on an iron-bound shore, Lashed by the wintry blasts and surge's roar, So is he buffeted on every side By drear misfortune's whelming tide, By every wind of heaven o'erborne Some from the sunset, some from orient morn, Some from the noonday glow. Some from Rhipean ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... beautiful beyond description, and lay near the edge of the mesa, whence we could look down upon the lovely lake. It was a complete surprise to us, as points of scenery were not much known or talked about then in Arizona. Ponds and lakes were unheard of. They did not seem to exist in that drear land of arid wastes. We never heard of water except that of the Colorado or the Gila or the tanks and basins, and irrigation ditches of the settlers. But here was a real Italian lake, a lake as blue as the skies above us. We feasted our eyes and ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... and drear. A raw, angry wind came out of the north and went raging through the woods, tearing the pretty clothing of the trees to pieces and rudely hurling the dust of the street in one's face. The sun got behind the clouds and in grief and dismay hid his ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... aegis of those snow-capped mountains lies Chaeronea and the Lion plain where with vain chivalry the Greeks strove to check Macedon first and afterwards Rome; Chaeronea, where in the Martinmas summer of Greek civilisation Plutarch rose from the drear waste of a dying religion as the aftermath rises when the mowers think they have left ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... of old predicted, Heaven and earth to-day rejoice; Men and angels, one in spirit, Shout aloud in gleeful voice; For, to those in darkness drear, God in human ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie
... prelude I would sing To song more drear, while thought soars into gloom. Find me the harbor of the roaming storm, Or end of souls whose doom is life itself! So vague, yet surely sad, the song I dream And utter not. So sends the tide its roll,— ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... soon will be, Sweetheart mine, Lone and drear, bereft of thee, Sweetheart mine, I shall hear thy voice no more, Never see thee cross the moor, With thy pail at morn or ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... of the Indian's rifles, Burl ran to the brow of the hill, and taking deliberate aim at the rolling body far down there, fired. Up came ringing a cry—a death-yell, so it would seem, so fierce it was, and wild and drear. The moment thereafter, now rolling with frightful rapidity, over the river ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... that from below was heard the musical splash of the Barberini Tritons, and that from the windows could be seen the sombre pines of the Ludovisi gardens swaying in solemn rhythmic measure must have been sometimes unbending from the dole and drear of mediaeval asceticism into something very ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... what glory streams! 'What majesty attends night's lovely queen! 'Fair laugh our vallies in the vernal beams; 'And mountains rise, and oceans roll between, 'And all conspire to beautify the scene. 'But, in the mental world, what chaos drear! 'What forms of mournful, loathsome, furious mien! 'O when shall that eternal morn appear, 'These dreadful forms to chace, ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... beside In sage and solemn times have sung Of turneys and of trophies hung; Of forests and enchantments drear, Where more is meant ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... further harvesting. However, I generally managed to slosh myself with cold water from the well, and so went to my bed with a measure of self-respect, but even the "spare room" was hot and small, and the conditions of my mother's life saddened me. It was so hot and drear for her! ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... man were hurried away by the rushing swiftness of the tide. A pitchy darkness succeeded; Wolfert Webber indeed fancied that He distinguished a cry for help, and that he beheld the drowning man beckoning for assistance; but when the lightning again gleamed along the water all was drear and void. Neither man nor boat was to be seen; nothing but the dashing and weltering of the waves ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... them we packed with our few effects, and turned the other over to Yank. Thus, trudging afoot, Johnny and I saw our last of Italian Bar. Thirty years later I rode up there out of sheer curiosity. Most of the old cabins had fallen in. The Bella Union was a drear and draughty wreck. The Empire was used as a stable. Barnes's place and Morton's next door had burned down. Only three of the many houses were inhabited. In two of them dwelt old men, tending small gardens and orchards. I do not doubt they too were Forty-niners; but I did not stop. The place was ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... in the windy wood; The dark rain drips from her hair and hood, And her cry sobs by, like a ghost pursued, "O my children, come home!" Where the trees loom gaunt and the rocks stretch drear, The owl and the fox crouch back with fear, As wild through the wood her voice they hear,— "O my children, come home, come home! O my children, ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... memory, bring not back the past, To brim our cup of sorrow; The drear to-day creeps on to bring A drearier to-morrow. Can streaming eyes and aching hearts Glow at the battle's story, Or they who stake their all and lose ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... had; But we twain grow yet more glad, And apart no more may go When the grassy slope and low Dieth in the shingly sand: Then we wander hand in hand By the edges of the sea, And I weary more for thee Than if far apart we were, With a space of desert drear 'Twixt thy lips and mine, O love! Ah, my joy, ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... strife, and carnage drear, Of Flodden's fatal field, Where shiver'd was fair Scotland's spear, And broken ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... Queen!—Victoria's name of glory Added as England's grace to Hindostan: O climax to this age's wondrous story, Full of new hope to India, and to Man In heathendom's dark places! For the light Of our Jerusalem shall now shine there Brighter than ever since the world began:— Yet by a way chaotic, drear and gory Travelled this blessing; as a martyr might Wrestling to heaven through tortures unaware: Our Empress Queen! for thee thy people's pray'r All round the globe to God ascends united, That He may strengthen ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... innumerable tongues, A dismal universal hiss, the sound Of public scorn. Dreadful was the din Of hissing through the hall, thick swarming now With complicated monsters, head and tail, Scorpion and asp, and Amphisbaena dire, Cerastes horned, Hydrus, and Elops drear, And Dipsas.' ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... and extraordinary journey! Here we had entered the earth by one volcano, and we had come out by another. And this other was situated more than twelve hundred leagues from Sneffels from that drear country of Iceland cast away on the confines of the earth. The wondrous changes of this expedition had transported us to the most harmonious and beautiful of earthly lands. We had abandoned the ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... and Ailrik, two of his monks, On the mission drear he sped To search for the corse on the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... cloudy stream is flowing, And a hard, steel blast is blowing; Bitterer now than I remember Ever to have felt or seen, In the depths of drear December, When the white doth hide the green. March, April, May. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... thy friendly shroud to veil my sight, That these pain'd eyes may dread no more the light; These welcome shades shall close my instant doom, And this drear mansion ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... be near Through the hours of darkness drear. When the help of man is far Ye more clearly present are. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! Watch o'er our defenceless heads, Let your angels' guardian host Keep all evil from our beds, Till the flood of morning rays Wake as to ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... dark pools and mountains drear, The wild-wood's silence, and the billow's roll, Great Nature rules, and claims with brow austere, The shudd'ring homage of ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin
... who had last seen her as a young girl—gentle, undeveloped, easily led, and rather stupid. She returned a gray-haired woman of thirty-four, who had lost youth, fortune, child, and husband; whose aspect, moreover, suggested losses still deeper and more drear. At first she wrapped herself in what seemed to some a dull and to others a tragic silence. But suddenly a flame leaped up in her. She became aware of the position of Madame d'Estrees in London; and one day, at a private view of the Academy, her former step-mother ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... cabin in a woodland drear, You've come by a mammy's heart to cheer; In this ole slave's cabin, Your hands my heart strings grabbin; Jes lay your head upon my bres, Jes snuggle close an res an res; ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... "Stay"; and thus Backwards and forwards swung his mind between, Till, mastered by the sorrow and the spell, Frantic flies Nala, leaving there alone That tender-sleeper, sighing as she slept. He flies—the soulless prey of Kali flies; Still, while he hurries through the forest drear, Thinking upon that sweet face he hath left. Far distant (King!) was Nala, when, refreshed, The slender-waisted wakened, shuddering At the wood's silence; but when, seeking him, She found no Nala, sudden anguish seized Her frightened ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... with a sort of consternation. Mrs. Braddock hesitated for a moment, and then said to him, drear despair in ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... compassion tender With this bell, instead of words, Wakens souls from life's illusions, Lightens this world's darkness drear. ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... at the timber-yard, Agnes working pretty crewel mats and toilet-covers, by way of change from painting; and Mrs. Clair, loving, guiding, counselling them all. The fund for the "rainy day" had increased remarkably, so that when November, "chill and drear," came round again, the boys were able to have new warm overcoats and thick gloves, and even Agnes was armed against the sudden changes of weather by a nice soft fur cape, and the whole winter months passed so pleasantly, that they were all astonished when Christmas was, so to speak, ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... gray branches of the oaks, starlit, I hear the heavy murmurs of the winds, Like the low plains of evil witches, held By drear enchantments from their demon loves. Another night-time, and I shall have found A refuge from their ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... entertained her at bed and board for a year; for that space of time I had her to myself in secret; she lay with me, she ate with me, she walked out with me, showing me nooks in woods, hollows in hills, where we could sit together, and where she could drop her drear veil over me, and so hide sky and sun, grass and green tree; taking me entirely to her death-cold bosom, and holding me with arms of bone. What tales she would tell me at such hours! What songs she would recite in my ears! How ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... come, weary brother! thy struggling and striving End thou in the heart of the Master of ruth; Across self's drear desert why wilt thou be driving, Athirst for the quickening ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... experience the drear loneliness that had sat on her like a dead weight the last month before she turned her back on Granville and its unhappy associations. For one thing, Bill Wagstaff kept her intellectually on the jump. He was always ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... torrent is loud on the hill, And the howl of the forest is drear, I think of the lapse of our own native rill— I think of thy voice ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... "the A 1 fast-sailing, commodious, first-class steam-packet Markerstown." Such is the soaring fiction: now let us look at the sore fact. The "A 1" is, I take it, simply the "Ai!" of the Greek chorus new-vamped for modern wear,—a drear wail well suited to the victims of the Markerstown. As to sailing qualities:—we know, of course, that all speed is relative. For a sea-comet, the Markerstown would be somewhat leisurely, though answering well for an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... without a pang, void, dark and drear, A drowsy, stifled, unimpassioned grief, Which finds no natural outlet or relief In word, or ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... volition into a dead and distorted strip of country. Black water which gave off an evil odor covered almost half an acre of ground. From this arose the twisted, gaunt gray skeletons of dead oaks. To complete the drear picture a row of rusty-black vultures sat along the broad naked limb of the nearest of these hulks, their red-raw heads upraised as they croaked and sidled up ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... and peeped furtively down through the skylight. The empty cabin looked strangely quiet and drear, and the door of the stateroom stood ajar. There was nothing to satisfy their curiosity, but they came back looking as though they had ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... on this drear Thanksgiving-Day despondent beside his hearth. With a hundred hard lines furrowing his pale face, telling of the work of time and struggle and misfortune, he looked the incarnation of silent sorrow and hopelessness, waiting in quiet meekness for the coming of Death,—without desire, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... shook the air, As when the tempest breaks Upon the peaks, while sunshine fair Is dreaming in the lakes. The birds shrieked on their wing; When rose a wind so drear, Its troubled spirit seemed to bring The shades of darkness near. We looked towards the windows old, Calm was the eve of June, On the summits shone the twilight's gold, And ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... She had not heard King go, yet she knew that she was alone in the cave. Alone! She sat up, clutching her blankets about her. Objects all around her were plunged into darkness, but where the canvas let in the morning she saw a patch of drear, chill light. Full morning. Then by now Mark King ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... a Spenserian; he owned to Dryden in later years that "Spenser was his original," and in some of his earliest lines at Horton he dwells lovingly on "the sage and solemn tones" of the "Faerie Queen," its "forests and enchantments drear, where more is meant than meets the ear." But of the weakness and affectation which characterized Spenser's successors he had not a trace. In the "Allegro" and "Penseroso," the first results of his retirement ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... rounded, that one almost saw the impressure of the fingers of some Titanic sculptor; and they hung low down, overwhelming, so that James could scarcely breathe. The sombre elms were too well-ordered, the meadows too carefully tended. All round, the hills were dark and drear; and that very fertility, that fat Kentish luxuriance, added to the oppression. It was a task impossible to escape from that iron circle. All power of flight abandoned ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... for that inspiring spell which turns the man of means into a wanderer upon the earth's surface, driving him out of glittering London, with its twinkling lights and its tinkling cabs, out of St. James's, and out of the club arm-chair—out of all this, and wins him into the vast, drear, and inhuman world, where men of our blood wage a ceaseless war with savage nature. And it is when Baden-Powell packs his frock-coat into a drawer, pops his shiny tall hat into a box, and slips exultingly into a flannel shirt that the life ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... were compelled to criticize; honourably granting, that this people has a great history. Even such has the Lion, with Homer for the transcriber of his deeds. But the gentle aliens would image our emergence from wildness as the unsocial spectacle presented by the drear menagerie Lion, alone or mated; with hardly an animated moment save when the raw red joint is beneath his paw, reminding ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... chime all cannot hear, And none can love him better than I; For he sings to me when the land is drear, And makes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... surface of the moon presents to the telescopic observer just that drear, cold, and chalk-like aspect, which our snow-clad mountains exhibit when the angle of reflection is similar to that in which we behold the lunar surface. In consequence, its mild light is due to the myriads of sparkling crystals, which diffusively reflect ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... he who lingered here, But a little while agone? From my homestead he has flown, From the city sped alone, Dwelling in the forest drear. Oh come again, to those who wait thee long, And who will greet thee with a choral song! Beloved, kindle bright Once more thine everlasting light. Through thee, oh cherub with protecting wings, My glory out ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... turbulent, and turbid; until the meeting of the waters of life, and then in a calm, serene, deep, and beautiful blessedness they flow on so softly and smoothly that the holy heavens and the Divine sun mirror themselves in the clear waters; and if night, chill and drear, draws its darkening curtain around them, soon the silver moon of a trusting faith floods them with a gentle radiance, and bright stars of intelligence gild the night's darkness, and they patiently await the dawn of an eternal day, when their joyous waters will ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... sun graying the low clouds, from which fell a cold drizzle; a setting drear enough for the scene the boys were to witness. A handful of gaunt men, sad but determined, their spent, drooping horses near by, stood facing a shallow grave scooped out of the prairie. Near it lay a blanket-covered figure ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... the great cross-support in the center, that goes to each side; He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as, caught in his 30 pangs And waiting his change, the king-serpent all heavily hangs, Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance come With the springtime—so agonized Saul, drear ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... these lines now reading, Think not, though from the world receding I joy my lonely days to lead in This Desart drear, That with remorse a conscience bleeding ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... making many books,' 'twas said, 'There is no end;' and who thereon The ever-running ink doth shed But proves the words of Solomon: Wherefore we now, for Colophon, From London's City drear and dark, In the year Eighteen-eighty-one, Reprint them at the press ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... the slightest attention, he found himself most happy; and I, living in New York close at hand, felt that I possessed in it and him an earthly paradise. Although it contained no more than 300,000 people and seemed, or had, a drear factory realm only, he soon revealed it to me in quite another light, because he was there. Very swiftly he found a wondrous canal running right through it, under its market even, and we went walking along ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... falls on Molly. She forgets all the cruel words that have been said, while a terrible compassion for the loneliness, the utter barrenness of his drear ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... plains, the winding Mohawk, the drone-like boats on the canal, the beautiful Cayuga, and the silvery water so famed in song; but, in contrast to all this, she was shut up in a dingy car, whose one dim lamp sent forth a sickly ray and sicklier smell, while without all was gloomy, dark, and drear. No wonder, then, that when toward morning Maude, who missed her soft, nice bed, began to cry for Janet and for home, the mother too burst forth in tears and choking sobs, which ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... quiet of the vast arched halls, left undisturbed by centuries, and as the moldering statue totters forward from its niche, we feel a faith has fallen which was once the heaven of nations, and the awful tumult is audible as a voice from the drear kingdom of death. And the hymn to the Future, with all the joyful Titian hues of its opening strophes, the glowing fervor of its deep yearning, swelling through 'golden-winged dreams' of the 'Land ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... a song to cheer All poor rogues that languish here, Doomed in dismal dungeon drear, Doomed ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... lad, seems a little bit drear, There are clouds and storm-shadows about the horizon, But—well, you're a chubby and rosy Young Year As ever your PUNCHY set eyes on. Under the Mistletoe Bough You look mighty kissable—now. So here goes another, for luck like, my dear, As ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various
... the chief—and no relief his regal state could bring. O'er such a drear unpeopled waste, oh! who would be a king? And still, when desolate a land, and her sons all swept away, "The waste domain of Syloson," 'tis call'd unto ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... he murmurs, "why linger we here? 'Tis late, and these chambers are damp and are drear, Keen blows through the ruins the blast! Oh! let us away and our journey pursue: Fair Blumenberg's Castle will rise on our view, Soon as ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... autumn nights were long and drear, And forest walks were dark and dim, How sweetly on the pilgrim's ear Was wont to ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... of the prairie country, billowed like the sea, and from off the crest of its higher ridges, the wide level sweep of the plains was visible, extending like a vast brown ocean to the foothills of the far-away mountains. Yet the actual commencement of that drear, barren expanse was fully ten miles distant, while all about where he rode the conformation was irregular, comprising narrow valleys and swelling mounds, with here and there a sharp ravine, riven from the rock, and invisible until one drew up startled at its very brink. ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... pleasure?" exclaimed Rosamund in the same drear voice, still staring at her father, who lay ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... art blest, compared wi' me! The present only toucheth thee, But, och! I backward cast my ee On prospects drear! And forward, though I canna see, ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... lyric Galaxy, I hear Of faded Genius with supreme disdain; As when we see the Miser bend insane O'er his full coffers, and in accents drear Deplore imagin'd want;—and thus appear To me those moody Censors, who complain, As [1]Shaftsbury plain'd in a now boasted reign, That "POESY had left our darken'd sphere." Whence may the present stupid dream be traced That now she shines not as in days foregone? Perchance neglected, ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... forgotten; there are memories clinging Round every breast that beats to hope and fear In this drear world, until the death's knell, ringing, Chimes with heart-moanings o'er the solemn bier; Then come love's pilgrims to the sad shrine, bringing The choicest ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... blest, compar'd wi' me! The present only toucheth thee: But, Och! I backward cast my e'e, On prospects drear! An' forward, tho' I canna see, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... think me not too strict, O followers of the plough; Some place for fiction in your lives I would allow. In January when the world is drear, And bills come in, and no results appear, And snow-storms veil the skies, And ice the streamlet clogs, Then may you warm your heart with pleasant lies And revel in the seedsmen's catalogues! What visions and what dreams are these Of cauliflower ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... flight of rickety stairs the old gentleman sees a shabbily dressed woman, and as he glances at the surroundings his soul sickens. All is drear and desolate. The apartment is cold, and a few coals seem trying to keep a little glow that the poor creature may not succumb ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... hides himself when winter, dark and drear, approaches, I'm sure I cannot tell; but I've never seen him then perambulating the streets. He may possibly, at that season, join company with Jamrack—that curiosity of the animal world; or, he may hibernate in ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Against an inward-opening door That pressure tightens ever more: They sigh, with a monstrous foul-air sigh, For the outside heaven of liberty, Where Art, sweet lark, translates the sky Into a heavenly melody. 'Each day, all day' (these poor folks say), 'In the same old year-long, drear-long way, We weave in the mills and heave in the kilns, We sieve mine-meshes under the hills, And thieve much gold from the Devil's bank tills, To relieve, O God, what manner of ills?— Such manner of ills as brute-flesh thrills. The beasts, they hunger, eat, sleep, die, And so do we, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... cold and dark and drear, And one who toils and toils with tireless pen, Until his brave, sad eyes grow weary—then He seeks the stars, pale, silent as ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... grassy meadows near Are clad with snow, my child; Through all the days of winter drear No ray of ...
— Christmas Roses • Lizzie Lawson
... song of mine Is a Song of the Vine, To be sung by the glowing embers Of wayside inns, When the rain begins To darken the drear Novembers. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... will some slave-master speak bitter words, Voiding his bile on us: 'Behold the mate Of Ajax, once the hero of our host, Fallen from her pride of place to menial toil.' So will they say. For me, where fate may drive I drift; but shame will be on thee and thine. Think of thy father, in his drear old age Bereft of thee; think of thy mother, too, With her grey head, who puts up many a prayer That she may welcome home her son alive. Have pity on thy child, who will be left In infancy, uncherished, and the ward Of unkind guardians; lay to heart the woes Which loss of thee would ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... her head From the darkness dread and drear, Her light fled, Stony, dread, And her locks covered ...
— Poems of William Blake • William Blake
... lady, come and share All my care; Oh how gladly I will hurry To confide my every worry (And they're very dark and drear) In ...
— Are Women People? • Alice Duer Miller
... old man of soldier-like aspect would pass them on horseback, and gaze at their two tall British figures with a look of curious and benign interest, as if he mentally wished them well, and well away from this drear limbo of penitence and ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... is Surtur's spear, and Nanna wavers! Oh virtue! which, when blood rag'd high didst triumph, How sure, how nobly thou reward'st thy lover! Ye rocks which so lately gave ear to my groans, Now hear of my hope and my gladness the tones, And reply ye proud woods that no longer seem drear; In vain fate and heaven, oh Balder, have cas'd, With vigour the bosom thou lovest, and placed In the hand of the hero the sorcerer's spear. Oh virtue! thou still dost thy servant befriend; Ye echoes the triumph of true love extend, And virtue's ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... the prize before the gaze of one who had also hailed it in the bleak, drear dawn. This was not the gardener;—and there was neither man, woman, nor child in sight, during the swift run;—no freeman; but a prisoner in an upper room of the prison. Through its grated window, the only one on that side of the building, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... it not good for the Christian's health To hurry the Aryan brown, For the Christian riles and the Aryan smiles, And he weareth the Christian down; And the end of the fight is a tombstone white And the name of the late deceased: And the epitaph drear: "A fool lies here Who tried to ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... competitive examination won a scholarship at the University of Chicago. Phi Beta Kappa keys have been won by R. C. Bruce at Harvard, Ellis Rivers at Yale, Clyde McDuffie and Rayford Logan at Williams, Charles Houston and John R. Pinkett at Amherst, Adelaide Cooke at Cornell, and Herman Drear at Bowdoin. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... heart, were dark and drear, Without their wonted light; The little star had left its sphere, That there ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... . And you are with the Duke of Gloucester," said De Bury, with a shrewd smile. "It is either fortune most rare or fate most drear. By St. Luke! I believe the debt has shifted and that you should thank me for having had the opportunity to save her uncle's life. Nay, I did but jest," he added hastily. "You have seen many a face, doubtless, in sunny France fairer far than hers; yet is she very dear to me and ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... pressing coldly around, The windows shake with a lonely sound, The stars are hid and the night is drear, The heart of silence throbs in thine ear, In thy chamber thou sittest alone, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... suffered—could I for ever put off the time, when the delicate frame and shrinking nerves of my child of prosperity, the nursling of rank and wealth, who was my companion, should be invaded by famine, hardship, and disease? Better die at once—better plunge a poinard in her bosom, still untouched by drear adversity, and then again sheathe it in my own! But, no; in times of misery we must fight against our destinies, and strive not to be overcome by them. I would not yield, but to the last gasp resolutely defended my dear ones against sorrow and pain; and if I were ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... long and loud, The sea was drear and dim; A little fish was floating there: Our Captain ...
— Greybeards at Play • G. K. Chesterton
... his musket for mother and brother, yeo ho! He warred with the Cannibals drear, in forests where panthers pad soft to and fro, And the Pongo shakes noonday with fear, Yeo ho! And the ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... to the school of hard mishap, Driven from the ease of fortune's lap. What schemes will nature not embrace T' avoid less shame of drear distress? Gold can the charms of youth bestow, And mask deformity with shew: Gold can avert the sting of shame, In Winter's arms create a flame: Can couple youth with hoary age, And make ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar Retreating to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... of mirth your audience shake; And yet to this, as all experience shows, No small amount of skill and talent goes. Your style must he concise, that what you say May flow on clear and smooth, nor lose its way, Stumbling and halting through a chaos drear Of cumbrous words, that load the weary ear; And you must pass from grave to gay,—now, like The rhetorician, vehemently strike, Now, like the poet, deal a lighter hit With easy playfulness and polished wit,— Veil the ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... so powerful! come, spirit so dread, From the home of the werwolf, the home of the dead. Come, give me thy blessing! come, lend me thine ear! Oh spirit of darkness! oh spirit so drear! ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... my heart Seems a cavern deep and drear, From whose dark recesses start, Flatteringly like birds of night, Throes of passion, thoughts of fear, Screaming in their flight. Wildly o'er the gloom they sweep, Spreading a horror dim,—a woe that ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... forests dark, Our loved isle will appear An Eden, whose delicious bloom Will make the wild more drear. And you in solitude will weep O'er scenes beloved in vain, And pine away your life to view Once more your ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... you here Over the lofty mountains? Surely your nest was there less drear, Taller the trees, the outlook clear;— Will you then only bring me Longings, ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... "Though drear my lot, yet, noble boy, Not always I repine; Come, wipe those watery drops away That in thine eyelids shine; Fill for thyself," the old man said, "Once ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... not seem to heed. Her eyes were fixed upon the ruined walls before her, rising drear and blank against the ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... long blue line of main-land which lifts its barren hills in misty distance from our kinder place. 'Tis a lusty stretch of gray water, sullen, melancholy, easily troubled by the winds, which delight, it seems, sweeping from the drear seas of the north, to stir its rage. In evil weather 'tis wide as space; when a nor'easter lifts the white dust of the sea, clouding Blow-me-down-Billy of the main-land in a swirl of mist and spume, there is no departure; nor is there any crossing ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... knight-errant, in its literal sense, [150] roving over seas on which no bark had ever ventured, among islands and continents where no civilized man had ever trodden, and which fancy peopled with all the marvels and drear enchantments of romance; courting danger in every form, combating everywhere, and everywhere victorious. The very odds presented by the defenceless natives among whom he was cast, "a thousand of whom," to quote the words of ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... are blest, compar'd wi' me! The present only toucheth thee: But, Och! I backward cast my e'e On prospects drear; An' forward, tho' I canna ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... sore and sad that lady grieved, In Cumnor Hall, so lone and drear; And many a heartfelt sigh she heaved, And let fall ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... are here Make things snug for Winter drear; Storehouse filled with everything To last until ...
— Little Jack Rabbit's Adventures • David Cory
... PROSERPINE through dusky glades Led the fair phantom to Elysian shades, Clad with new form, with finer sense combined, And lit with purer flame the ethereal mind. —Erewhile, emerging from infernal night, 590 The bright Assurgent rises into light, Leaves the drear chambers of the insatiate tomb, And shines and charms with renovated bloom.— While wondering Loves the bursting grave surround, And edge with meeting wings the yawning ground, 595 Stretch their fair necks, and leaning ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... slapped his back with friendly roar Aesop awaited him without the door,— Aesop the Greek, who made dull masters laugh With little tales of FOX and DOG and CALF. And be it said, mid these his pranks so odd With something nigh to chivalry he trod And oft the drear and driven would defend— The little shopgirls' knight unto the end. Yea, he had passed, ere we could understand The blade of Sidney glimmered in his hand. Yea, ere we knew, Sir Philip's sword was drawn With valiant cut and thrust, and ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay |
