"Shear" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of stock hope of getting a few stragglers to shear somewhere; but their main object is to live till next shearing. In order to do this they must tramp for tucker, and trust to the regulation—and partly mythical—pint of flour, and bit of meat, or tea and sugar, and to ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... a fire and putting it out—now that the sun had gone she saw that her hearth was cold. It was for Martin she had sown her spring wheat, for Martin she had broken up twelve acres of pasture by the Kent Ditch, for Martin she would shear her ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... of all this, but he had the four hundred thousand francs which Nucingen had allowed him to shear from the Parisian sheep, and he portioned his sisters. D'Aiglemont, at a hint from his cousin Beaudenord, besought Rastignac to accept ten per cent upon his million if he would undertake to convert it into shares in a canal which is still to make, for Nucingen worked things with ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... vest of pall, thy fingers small, That wont on harp to stray, A cloak must shear from the slaughtered deer, To keep ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... and the true! My hand shall win its vengeance through and through, Piercing with flawless shaft what heart soe'er Of all men living is most dear to Her. Yea, and to thee, for this sore travail's sake, Honours most high in Trozen will I make; For yokeless maids before their bridal night Shall shear for thee their tresses; and a rite Of honouring tears be thine in ceaseless store; And virgin's thoughts in music evermore Turn toward thee, and praise thee in the Song Of Phaedra's far-famed love and thy great wrong. O seed ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... all the people returned home, and the Fair Nancy was towed to the "shear-hulk" to have her masts put in. The shear-hulk is a large ship in which is placed machinery for lifting masts into other ships. Every one who has looked at the thick masts of a large vessel, must see at ...
— The Life of a Ship • R.M. Ballantyne
... months. His death occurred at the fortress of Saint Leon, Rome, in 1795. A sublimer rascal never breathed, wrote W. Russell, LL.D., in "Eccentric Personages." Balsamo had unlimited faith in the gullibility of mankind, and was amply endowed with the gifts which enable their possessor to shear the ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... worth double the amount.—Such is the use of the great in relation to the central power; instead of constituting themselves representatives of the people, they aimed to be the favorites of the Sovereign, and they shear the flock which they ought ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Whether the gale really moderated, or I got more nerve, I don't know; but anyhow I gave her more and more, half a knot at a time, until we were actually making appreciable headway against it. I never thought any ship could stand the bludgeoning she got. It seemed as if every rivet must shear, every frame and stanchion crush, under the impact of the Juggernaut seas that hurtled into her. As a thoroughbred horse starts and trembles under the touch of the whip, so she reared and trembled, only to bury herself again in the roaring Niagara of water. ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... And made me, when it cam', A bird without a mate, A ewe without a lamb. Our hay was yet to maw, And our corn was yet to shear; When they a' dwined awa', In the ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... sent for Eben to come and eat an egg with me—matters were entered upon and arranged—Benjie was sent on trial; and though at first he funked and fought refractory, he came, to the astonishment of his master and the old apprentice, in less than no time to cut hair without many visible shear- marks; and, within the first quarter, succeeded, without so much as drawing blood, to unbristle, for a wager of his master's, the Saturday night's countenance of Daniel Shoebrush himself, who was as rough ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... last in crowds she slaughters them, she chokes The very stalls with carrion-heaps that rot In hideous corruption, till men learn With earth to cover them, in pits to hide. For e'en the fells are useless; nor the flesh With water may they purge, or tame with fire, Nor shear the fleeces even, gnawed through and through With foul disease, nor touch the putrid webs; But, had one dared the loathly weeds to try, Red blisters and an unclean sweat o'erran His noisome limbs, till, no long tarriance made, The fiery curse his ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... and would have overtaken him by running, then again did Juturna turn the horses about and flee. And as he sped Messapus cast a spear at him. But AEneas saw it coming, and put his shield over him, resting on his knee. Yet did the spear smite him on the helmet-top and shear off the crest. Then indeed was his wrath kindled, and he rushed into the army of the enemy, slaying ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... Be ready to stand by me to the end, abandon me not left forlorn of thee when thou dost visit the kings. But only save me; let justice and right, to which we have both agreed, stand firm; or else do thou at once shear through this neck with the sword, that I may gain the guerdon due to my mad passion. Poor wretch! if the king, to whom you both commit your cruel covenant, doom me to belong to my brother. How shall I come to my father's sight? Will it be with ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... estate twenty-five hundred acres of land, and owns besides about two thousand acres in the same state, and thirty thousand acres in Kentucky. Its chief industry is farming, and the families keep a large number of sheep and cattle. They shear wool enough to supply all their own needs in cloth and flannel, but have these woven by an outside mill; they raise large crops of broom-corn and sweet corn: the first they make into brooms, and the other they put up dry in barrels for sale; they put up fruits and vegetables in tin cans, and ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... the wind come from? It doesn't matter: we know the habits of wind after it arrives." As to politics: "The people are always worsted in an election." As to altruism: "The long and the short of it is, whoever catches the fool first is entitled to shear him." As to love: "We cannot permit love to run riot; we must build fences around it, as we do around pigs." As to money: "In theory, it is not respectable to be rich. In fact, poverty is a disgrace." As to literature: ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... You're rather a good farmer, but I haven't met one yet who made a successful speculator. Some of our friends have tried it—and you know where it landed them. I expect those broker and mortgage men must lick their lips when a nice fat woolly farmer comes along. It must be quite delightful to shear him." ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... carbonization required. By this means, what is called BLISTERED STEEL is produced, and it furnishes the material out of which razors, files, knives, swords, and various articles of hardware are manufactured. A further process is the manufacture of the metal thus treated into SHEAR STEEL, by exposing a fasciculus of the blistered steel rods, with sand scattered over them for the purposes of a flux, to the heat of a wind-furnace until the whole mass becomes of a welding heat, when it is taken from the fire and drawn out under ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... groan, and volumes heap, Our dullness we no more betray; To know the stars, or shear a sheep— To live on air, or polo play; The trick is ours, or we may stray Beneath the seas, with science cooks, And sprint by some reflected ray The easy road ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... she was walking most of the time, anyhow—climbing over reefs and clambering over snags patiently and laboriously all day long. The captain said she was a "bully" boat, and all she wanted was some "shear" and a bigger wheel. I thought she wanted a pair of stilts, but I had the deep sagacity not to say ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... says little Bo-peep, Co' dea', co' dea', I'll shear my sheep; Their wool so fine will make my coat, My blankets ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... for a rest, and the men went back to the camp. The boats were much lighter than the gear, being made of only half-inch plank. One boat was capsized bottom up, and the men took it on their shoulders, six on each side, the tallest men being placed in the middle on account of the shear of the boat, and it was carried about half a mile past the gear. They then returned for the other boat, and in this way brought everything to the bight close to the spot where the bathing house at Warrnambool has since been erected. ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... supply vacancies by planting anew. Then look out for woodchucks, if it is an exposed place, for they will nibble off the earliest tender leaves almost clean as they go; and again, when the young tendrils make their appearance, they have notice of it, and will shear them off with both buds and young pods, sitting erect like a squirrel. But above all harvest as early as possible, if you would escape frosts and have a fair and salable crop; you may save much loss ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... up the channel or I'm trucking up the slope, I'm hauling on the shear-head with a length of yellow rope; No matter where I'm wandering, in dreaming or in fact, Wool-loaded down the blacksoil plains or past the desert tract, About the city clamorous with many brakes and bells, It takes no sweep of wizard wand nor moonlit fairy spells To bring me ...
— The Bay and Padie Book - Kiddie Songs • Furnley Maurice
... Andrew Hillersdon, son-in-law to William Gibbs, was among them, with the result that the only penalty imposed was to find surety for his good 'aberying' (bearing) of 100 marks. Although this was a very mild verdict, it infuriated the culprit, whose next step was to shear the Church lambs, and carry off '11 youes with their lambs'; and on the Thursday night before the Feast of St. Matthew he, with his son Thomas and many others, did 'then and there ryottusly assemble theym togeders to kyll your said orators, leyin awayte,' and the said 'Thomas ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... laid out for that purpose the fourth part of the money which was collected from the commonalty during his time, it certainly would not have fallen short, as the wine-excise was expressly laid for that object. But it was sought in a thousand ways to shear the sheep though the wool was not yet grown. In regard, then, to public works, there is little difference between Director Kieft and Director Stuyvesant, for after the church was built the former was negligent, and took personal action against ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... of the year! Ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear: [catch] Thou, Simmer, while each corny spear Shoots up its head, Thy gay green flow'ry tresses shear For him that's dead! ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... up in this kind of talk, because for the last two or three years, since we had begun to shear pretty well, we had always shorn at his shed. He was one of those gentlemen—and he was a gentleman, if ever there was one—that takes a deal of notice of his working hands, particularly if they were young. Jim he took a great ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... quickened her pace a little but we kept our position. Uncle Eb was leaning over the dasher his white locks flying. He had something up his sleeve, as they say, and was not yet ready to use it. Then Dean began to shear over to cut us off—a nasty trick of the low horseman. I saw Uncle Eb glance at the ditch ahead. I knew what was coming and took a firm hold of the seat. The ditch was a bit rough, but Uncle Eb had no lack of courage. He turned the horse's head, let up on ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... "No king of the earth might scorn Such noble bidding, Siggeir; and surely will I come To look upon thy glory and the Goths' abundant home. But let two months wear over, for I have many a thing To shape and shear in the Woodland, as befits a people's king: And thou meanwhile here abiding of all my goods shalt be free, And then shall we twain together roof over the glass-green sea With the sides of our golden dragons; and our war-hosts' blended shields Shall ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... him to proceed, and spoke in the flow of the subject; but the quaver of her tones was a cause of further melting. The tears poured, she could not explain why, beyond assuring him that they were no sign of unhappiness. Winds on the great waters against a strong tidal current beat up the wave and shear and wing the spray, as in Aminta's bosom. Only she could know that it was not her heart weeping, though she had grounds for a woman's weeping. But she alone could be aware of her heart's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... me admission, And said he "vould shoot mit his gun," So I, out of Shear opposition, Counted him ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various
... of fruit. serf, a slave; servant. sun, the source of light. surf, a swell of the sea. son, a male child. serge, a kind of cloth. steel, refined iron. surge, to rise; to swell. steal, to rob; to pilfer. sheer, pure; clear. stile, steps over a fence. shear, to cut or clip. style, manner of writing. side, a part; a margin. stare, to look fixedly. sighed, did sigh. stair, a step. slew (slu), did slay. sweet, pleasing to the taste. slue, to slip aside. suite ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... tenants, my lord, if you please. I may shear them, a little, I trust; but you can't suppose ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... is a lashing for shear legs, and must be tight enough to prevent the spars slipping on each other; the crossing of the two legs gives a ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... on to do yet more in that worthy cause. For surely he who hath been to our British Israel as a shield of help, and a sword of excellency, making her enemies be found liars unto her, will not give over the flock to those foolish shepherds of Westminster, who shear the sheep and feed them not, and who are in very deed hirelings, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... Then the wyld thorowe the woodes went, on every syde shear; Greahondes thorowe the grevis glent, for to kyll ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... of membrane spanned twenty feet from tip to tip. There was a pursy sac-like body, ending in a head with staring, lidless eyes and a great black beak that looked strong enough to shear sheet steel. From the body descended half a dozen long ...
— Devil Crystals of Arret • Hal K. Wells
... girls so fair Their jeers, I think, will spare, For the king's force was but small That emptied Throndhjem's hall. But if they will have their jeer, They may ask their sweethearts dear, Why they have returned shorn Who went to shear that ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... With our naked sword, Wherewith we shear meadows and fields. We shear princes and lords. Labourers are often athirst; If the gentleman will stand beer and brandy The joke will soon be over. But, if our prayer he does not like, The sword ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... me whether you and your Eve will get justice from him, being English. England and Englishmen find little favour at Avignon just now, and mayhap Philip has already written on behalf of de Noyon. At the best His Holiness will shear you close and keep you waiting while he weighs the wool. No, Red Eve is right: this is a knot soonest severed by the sword. If you should find him, de Noyon could scarce refuse to meet you, for you shall fight him as the champion of our cause as well as of your own. He's at Venice, for ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... clean-shorn from the nose to the heels, through the aperture of his separate enclosure. With the same effort apparently he calls out 'Wool!' and darts upon another sheep. Drawing this second victim across his knee, he buries his shear-points in the long wool of its neck. A moment after a lithe and eager boy has gathered up fleece number one, and tossed it into the train-basket, the shearer is halfway down the sheep's side, the wool hanging in one fleece like a great glossy mat, ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... strangle; cramp; dwarf, bedwarf[obs3]; shorten &c. 201; circumscribe &c. 229; restrain &c. 751. [reduce in size by abrasion or paring. see subtraction 38] abrade, pare, reduce, attenuate, rub down, scrape, file, file down, grind, grind down, chip, shave, shear, wear down. Adj. contracting &c. v.; astringent; shrunk, contracted &c. v.; strangulated, tabid[obs3], wizened, stunted; waning &c. v.; neap, compact. unexpanded &c. (expand &c. 194)[obs3]; contractile; compressible; smaller &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... of this beautiful genus. The inner peridium seems to be lacking,—a comfort to Rostafinski! Rare. Our best specimens are from New Jersey, by courtesy of Dr. C. L. Shear. These went to fruit on leaves and branches of Vaccinium. It seems to affect the heather of Europe, moorland, etc. I have also specimens from the herbarium of the lamented Dr. Rex. These are more plasmodiocarpous, but open beautifully by a median fissure as in Physarum sinuosum Bull. In ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride
... he, "but I tell you again I have no time either to drink or shear. I must be gone before those mad fellows return, and detain ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... the re-organization of the church-system. In it they cut themselves loose from all former connection with the bishops: "Since you"—so they say—"in spite of all prayers and invitations have staid away from the Disputation, and since you indeed shear the poor sheep, but have not pastured them, we deprive you of your selfish trade, and neither we, nor they who come after us, wish to be bound in any way to you or your successors." All deacons and pastors are released from their oath to them, and required henceforth to give it to the government. ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... "He works his siggle like a man though."—"A stout boy anyway; give him practice and he'd shear many a man in bed." Then the women: "She's looking as bright as a pewter pot, and she's all so pretty as the Govenar's daughter too."—"Got a good heart, though. Only last week she had word of Pete, and look at the scarlet perricut." Finally ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... assistant, Mark Shearer to Calhoun's ranch to get the other 1000 head. I had left the camp in good trim there near Maxwell's and everything was progressing nicely with my sheep on the grass with good herders. At Calhoun ranch we were delayed on account of Calhoun having to shear the sheep. However, after four days' delay we started back toward Maxwell's. Joe Dillon met us not far from camp and told me he had discharged four of my men and paid off two in tobacco and the other two men would not take tobacco. He said that he had ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... along, we will just shear through the feeble undergrowth of childish theories. I shall not, therefore, linger over the suggestions of cheating, of manifest signs addressed to the eye or ear, of electrical installations that are supposed to control the answers, nor other idle tales of an excessively clumsy character. ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... thee east ease keep beef near plea heed greet year freed dean team weed ream tease deed treat wean teach sheet yeast meet spree plead sheaf mead steep sheer eaves greed creak creek shear spear breed agree sneer bleed speed beach sheen green preen cheap sweep sheep reach street freeze dream tweed fleece cream weave screen peach gleam wheat streak bream leaves cleans crease teapot beams please greedy Easter spleen breeze gleans squeak beaver ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... dealing about them with bludgeon and cutlass, and led merrily on by Haultepenne and Elmont armed in proof, at the head of their squadron of lancers. The unfortunate patriots had risen very early in the morning only to shear the wolf. Some were cut to pieces in the streets; others climbed the walls, and threw themselves head foremost into the moat. Many were drowned, and but a very few effected their escape. Justinus de Nassau. sprang over the parapet, and succeeded in swimming the ditch. Kleerhagen, driven into ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... is the ceremony when a child reaches the age of one year, from rutuni, to cut or shear. It receives the name which it retains until the Huarachicu if a boy, and until the Quicu-chicuy if a girl. They then receive the names they retain until death. At the Rutuchicu the child was shorn. Molina, ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
... and earn some money for us; go into the field and cut the corn that we may have some bread." "Yes, dear Hans, I will do that." After Hans had gone away, she cooked herself some good broth and took it into the field with her. When she came to the field she said to herself, "What shall I do; shall I shear first, or shall I eat first? Oh, I will eat first." Then she emptied her basin of broth, and when she was fully satisfied, she once more said, "What shall I do? Shall I shear first, or shall I sleep first? I will sleep first." Then she lay down among the corn ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... you keep account of them, my Lord, that you may pay me their value when we come to settle our score, seeing that I never gave you leave to shear my sheep and ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... novelty are dead, And you've seen a load of wounded once or twice, Or you've watched your old mate dying — with the vultures overhead, Well, you wonder if the war is worth the price. And down along Monaro now they're starting out to shear, I can picture the excitement and the row; But they'll miss me on the Lachlan when they call the roll this year, For we're going on ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... land, for she was walking most of the time, anyhow—climbing over reefs and clambering over snags patiently and laboriously all day long. The captain said she was a "bully" boat, and all she wanted was more "shear" and a bigger wheel. I thought she wanted a pair of stilts, but I had the deep sagacity ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Thursday afternoon. It will be just a formal call—mutual introductions—and, later, an invitation from Mrs. Ames to Mrs. Hawley-Crowles. Meantime, I want you to get Mrs. Hawley-Crowles involved in a financial way, and shear her of every penny! ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... marketed in the Orient, America or Europe, thousands of pounds of wool and camel hair could be exported. Of course both of these articles are produced at the present time, but only in limited quantities. In the region where we spent the summer, the Mongols sometimes do not shear their sheep or camels but gather the wool from the ground when it has dropped off in the natural process of shedding. Probably half of it is lost, and the remainder is full of dirt and grass which detracts greatly from its value. Moreover, ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... Roy, speaking to himself, but at the musician, "for one of your eyes turned this way; but you won't speak till you've got to the end of that bit of noise. Oh, how I should like to shear off those long greasy curls! They make you look worse even than you do when they're all twisted up in pieces of paper. It doesn't suit your round, fat face. You don't look a bit like a cavalier, Master P.P.; but ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... addresses by his Christian name'; that although he was shy and awkward in the society of ladies, at ease with his own sex only when cattle and horses were the subject of conversation, ignorant of music, and unable to tell Millais from Tenniel, he 'could pick you out any bullock in a herd ... shear a hundred sheep a day ... and drive four horses down a sidling in a Gippsland range with any man in Australia,'—to say all this by way of preliminary, to add that Calverley was no fool, and yet to show him in scarcely any other ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... But art not able to keep touch. Mira de lente, as 'tis i' th' adage, Id est, to make a leek a cabbage; 850 Thou'lt be at best but such a bull, Or shear-swine, all cry, and no wool; For what can synods have at all With bear that's analogical? Or what relation has debating 855 Of church-affairs with bear-baiting? A just comparison still is Of things ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... passed through the west channel, the shear or first beacon on the west reefs was on with a round-topped hill some distance up the river. Although there is very apparent difficulty in navigating the Tamar, still the first glance shows it to be a stream of importance. Its valley, although not wide, may be traced for ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... "Shear him, like Sampson," he suggested. "But it strikes me he has about the most attractive woman—bar ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... excuse my violence," said Glenn. "I've been hugging sheep. That is, when I shear a sheep I have to ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... small cluster of boulders on top of the cliff. His chief difficulty was to hoist into place the tall poles he needed, and for this purpose he had to again visit Palm-tree Rock in order to secure the pulley. By exercising much ingenuity in devising shear-legs, he at last succeeded in lifting the masts into their allotted receptacles, where they were firmly secured. Finally he was able to swing into air, high above the tops of the neighboring trees, the loftiest of which he felled in order to clear the ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... faults are closely associated. Under lateral pressure strata may fold to a certain point and then tear apart and fault along the surface of least resistance. Under immense pressure strata also break by shear without folding. Thus, in Figure 185, the rigid earth block under lateral thrust has found it easier to break along the fault plane than to fold. Where such faults are nearly horizontal they are distinguished ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... All bodin in feir of weir.[22] In jackis, scripis, and bonnets of steel, Their legs were chenyiet[23] to the heel, Froward was their affeir,[24] Some upon other with brands beft,[25] Some jaggit[26] others to the heft[27] With knives that sharp could shear. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... sweat ran down their foreheads and dripped on the ground; and they peeled the yellow wool off sheep after sheep as an expert cook peels an apple. In the settled districts such as Kuryong, where the flocks were small, they were made to shear carefully; but away out on the Queensland side, on a station with two hundred thousand sheep to get through, they rushed the wool off savagely. He was a poor specimen of the clan who couldn't shear ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... friends, beyond dispute I too have the cowslips dewy and dear. Punctual as Springtide forth peep they: But I ought to pluck and impound them, eh? Not let them alone, but deftly shear And shred and reduce to—what may suit Children, ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... great, docile creatures, with shaggy, clumsy legs, hoofs as big as dinner plates, and fetlocks six inches long. Later we had to shear their legs, because the long hair loaded up so badly with snow. Several of them were light red in color, and had crinkly manes and tails; and three or four weighed as much as sixteen hundred pounds apiece. Each ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... order to draw the plough and till the ground. Cows yield streams of milk. Sheep have in their fleeces a superfluity which is not for them, and which still grows and renews, as it were to invite men to shear them every year. Even goats furnish man with a long hair, for which they have no use, and of which he makes stuffs to cover himself. The skins of some beasts supply men with the finest and best linings, in the countries that are most remote ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... coin. Mahometanism pays in pewter now, in place of silver and gold. The lords of the world have run to seed. The powerless old sword frightens nobody now—the steel is turned to pewter too, somehow, and will no longer shear a Christian head off any shoulders. In the Crusades my wicked sympathies have always been with the Turks. They seem to me the better Christians of the two: more humane, less brutally presumptuous about their own merits, and more generous ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... employee paid for his ministration. And this ministration is not exalted in him by an extraordinary and visible renunciation, by perpetual celibacy, by continence promised and kept; he is married,[5333] father of a family, needy, obliged to shear his flock to support himself and those belonging to him, and therefore is of little consideration; he is without moral ascendancy; he is not the pastor who is obeyed, but the official ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... pestilence had subsided, it was impossible to find laborers enough to till the soil and shear the sheep. Those who were free now demanded higher wages, while the villeins, or serfs (S113), and slaves left their masters and roamed about the country asking for pay for ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... shear?" demanded Zotique, (looking for an instant, as he turned to shout towards another quarter, ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... after the sailing of the Lydia the weather broke. The morning mist lay heavy on the islands, and the lofty Ward Hill of Hoy hid his crown in the lowering clouds; the Bay of Stromness was glassy calm. High above the rain goose shrieked its melancholy cry, and the sea mews and sheldrakes, even the shear waters and bonxies, flew landward to the shelter of the cliffs. On the upland meadows the cows sniffed the moist air and refused to eat, and the young lambs sought the protection ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... the Myall Lake, And there rose the sound thro' the livelong day Of the constant clash that the shear-blades make When the fastest shearers are making play, But there wasn't a man in the shearers' lines That could shear a sheep with ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... sheared the flesh. The Sheep, writhing with pain, said, "Why do you hurt me so, Mistress? What weight can my blood add to the wool? If you want my flesh, there is the butcher, who will kill me in an instant; but if you want my fleece and wool, there is the shearer, who will shear and ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... weather during the next few days when we should be approaching the land. On his previous southern journey Scott had been prevented from reaching the range of mountains which ran along to our right by a huge chasm. This phenomenon is known to geologists as a shear crack and is formed by the movement of a glacier away from the land which bounds it. In this case a mass of many hundred miles of Barrier has moved away from the mountains, and the disturbance is correspondingly great. Shackleton ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... which we get the well-known surname Goldsmith, the name of a great English writer. Then there was the "nail smith," from which trade came the name Nasmith; the "sickle smith," from which came Sixsmith; the "shear smith," which gave ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... the eve of Yule, Will forge three anchors rare; The hemp thou shalt pull, thou shalt shear the wool, And the ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... their gaze—was not a human being at all. Take a man's eyelids away, leaving the round balls staring, blood-streaked; cut away his lips, leaving the grinning teeth and red gums; shear off his ears—that which is left is not a man at all. This had been done to Victor Durnovo. Truly the vengeance of man is crueller than ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... shear me as bare as Delilah did Samson of old. But I am not promising you I am going to work. My physician warns me against work on Saturday nights, so I am going to hunt ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... male is called a ram, or tup; after weaning, he is said to be a hog, or hogget, or a lamb-hog, tup-hog, or teg; later he is a wether, or wether-hog; after the first shearing, a shearing, or dinmont; and after each succeeding shearing, a two, three, or four-shear ram, tup, or wether, according to circumstances. The female is called a ewe, or gimmer-lamb, till weaned, when she becomes, according to the shepherd's nomenclature, a gimmer-ewe, hog, or teg; after shearing, a gimmer or shearing-ewe, or theave; and in future a two, three, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... and similar plants come along it will add to their sturdiness and stockiness to shear off the tops—about half of the large leaves—once or twice after the plants have attained a height of ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... be a lamb, but she isn't going to let us shear her, if she can help it," said Phil, ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... did not reply to this, for she thought the old ram very ill-tempered and selfish, and believed he was doing wrong not to grow more wool. Finally the time came to shear the sheep again, and the farmer and his man came into the pasture to look at them, and were surprised to see what a fine, big fleece the ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... excessive laughter or any other demonstration of joy, and to allow a free vent to copious lamentation and wailing that come from the same source? And how unreasonable is it, as some husbands do, to quarrel with their wives about perfume and purple robes, while they allow them to shear their heads in mourning, and to dress in black, and to sit in idle grief, and to lie down in weariness! And what is worst of all, how unreasonable is it for husbands to interfere if their wives ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... risen Rive rived riven Run ran run Saw sawed sawn, R. Say said said See saw seen Seek sought sought Sell sold sold Send sent sent Set set set Shake shook shaken Shape shaped shaped, shapen Shave shaved shaven, R. Shear sheared shorn Shed shed shed Shine shone, R. shone, R. Show showed shown Shoe shod shod Shoot shot shot Shrink shrunk shrunk Shred shred shred Shut shut shut Sing sung, sang[9] sung Sink sunk, sank[9] sunk Sit sat set Slay slew slain Sleep slept slept Slide slid slidden ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... together, until the long, wicked shear was but a foot above the bound girl.... It dropped to within ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... our glens are deep, No fitting for a yairdie; And our norlan'[42] thristles winna pu', Thou wee, wee German lairdie! And we've the trenching blades o' weir,[43] Wad lib[44] ye o' your German gear, And pass ye 'neath the claymore's shear, Thou feckless[45] ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... self as the undecided recipient of Franklin's devotion than as his affianced wife. A rayless person, it seemed, could crown one with beams as long as one maintained one's distance from him; merged with him one shared his insignificance. To accept Franklin might be to shear them both of all the radiance they borrowed from ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... learned little of the sort,' said I. My father did but teach me to strike an honest downright blow. This sword can shear through a square inch of ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had died and, sede vacante, great changes were impending, for Parliament was about to shear off a large portion of the privileges of the ancient franchise, to reduce the endowments, and to hand over the mines to ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... They said had wrought this blessed deed, This leech Arbuthnot was yclept, Who many a night not once had slept; But watch'd our gracious Sov'reign still: For who could rest when she was ill? O may'st thou henceforth sweetly sleep! Shear, swains, oh shear your softest sheep To swell his couch; for well I ween, He saved the realm ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... shorn lamb," retorted Mrs. Nesbit. "The shorn tom-cat! I'd like to shear him." Wherewith she rose and putting out the light led the Doctor to ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... enough to shear my hair, Skallagrim; but if Atli would strike let him lay on. Whitefire will not be ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... these counterfeits be not so hard; and also the points will break lightly, and men may easily polish them. But some workmen, for malice, will not polish them; to that intent, to make men believe that they may not be polished. But men may assay them in this manner. First shear with them or write with them in sapphires, in crystal or in other precious stones. After that, men take the adamant, that is the shipman's stone, that draweth the needle to him, and men lay the diamond upon the adamant, and lay the needle before the adamant; ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... bishops excepted. "O Pontiffs, tell the efficacy of gold in sacred matters!" Avarice often leads the highest men astray, and men, admirable in all other respects: these find a salvo for simony; and, striking against this rock of corruption, they do not shear but flay the flock; and, wherever they teem, plunder, exhaust, raze, making shipwreck of their reputation, if not of their souls also. Hence it appears that this malady did not flow from the humblest to the highest classes, but vice versa, so that the maxim is true although spoken in ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... A form to shudder at and flee. The hideous monster's very view Would cleave a timid heart in two. Behold the demon hard to smite, Defended by her magic might. My hand shall stay her course to-day, And shear her nose and ears away. No heart have I her life to take: I spare it for her sex's sake. My will is but—with minished force— To check her in her evil course." While thus he spoke, by rage impelled— Roaring as she came nigh, The fiend her course at Rama held ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... blaspheming still amain. How void my misery is of all relief Thou mayst e'en feel, so sore I call thee, sire, With voice all full of woe; Ay, and I tell thee that it irks me so That death for lesser torment I desire. Come, death, then; shear the sheaf Of this my life of grief And with thy stroke my madness eke assain; Go where I may, less dire will be ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat. Whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris's bowie knife plunged into ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... they are men skilled not in propagating the vine, nor in grafting trees, nor in tilling the ground. They know not how to cultivate the fields, nor to wash gold, or to break horses, or to shear or feed ...
— On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art • James Mactear
... The Free Traders were like a man who, seeing his antagonist is no match for him, boldly calls for a free fight and no favor, while the Protectionist was the man who, seeing himself overmatched, called for the police. The Free Trader held that the natural, God-given right of the capitalist to shear the people anywhere he found them was superior to considerations of race, nationality, or boundary lines. The Protectionist, on the contrary, maintained the patriotic right of the capitalist to the exclusive shearing of his own fellow-countrymen without interference of foreign capitalists. ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... as he said, the jarl tempered the axe head, heating and cooling it many times, until it would take an edge that would shear through iron without turning. And he also wrought runes on it, hammering gold wire into clefts that ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... it in the future.—None of the vast tumors which have sucked the sap of the human plant are to remain; we have cut them away with a few telling blows, while the steady-moving machine, permanently erected by us, will shear off their last tendrils should they ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... stone which they had picked up. And then David became a sergeant, and was drilling them for soldiers, and stuck pieces of fern into their hair for cockades. And then, soon after, they were sheep, and he was the shepherd; and he was catching his flock and going to shear them, and made so much noise that Jane cried, "Hold! ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... understood and expressed with loving fidelity, and he has further succeeded in communicating to us the feelings by which he was animated. As we look at his pictures a strange primitive instinct of a rural life is gradually roused in us—an innocent desire to milk, to shear, to drive these gentle patient animals that delight the eye and heart. In this art Paul Potter is unsurpassed. Berghem is more refined, but Potter is more natural; Van de Velde is more graceful, but Potter is more vigorous; Du Jardin is more ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... year at Highfield, during which time I made myself acquainted with all the routine of a sheep-farmer's life. I learned to ride stock, shoe horses, shear sheep, plough, fence, fell and split timber, and everything else that an experienced squatter ought to be able to do, not omitting the accomplishment of smoking. Mr. Lee then offered me what he had offered C——, and I agreed to accept it pending a visit I meditated making ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... broad face wreathed in smiles. "He is a strong man—has many friends; but Wall Street brokers are always ready to shear each other." ...
— Halsey & Co. - or, The Young Bankers and Speculators • H. K. Shackleford
... the chance—on her clothes and finery. You must know that. Your sex as a class doesn't regard it as disreputable in the least. At the worst, it is a peccadillo, not a crime. The law was passed to enable our native tailors to shear the well-to-do public." ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... to come and shear me to-morrow. The weather is getting to be very warm, and a heavy beard is exceedingly uncomfortable. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... is a second line, "As the deil said when he shore the sow." Of course such an operation was accompanied with much noise on the part of the sow, but little wool, nothing but bristles. I have never, however, had to turn my bristles against the gentlemen who wished to shear me. ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... (cut, separate): (1 and 2 combined) shear, sheer, shred, share, shard, scar, score, (sea)shore, shorn, shroud, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... morality, but howsoever imperfect, fragmentary, and I might almost say to our more trained eyes, grotesque, it looks, yet there was a reality in it; and when the man was faithless to his vow, and allowed the crafty harlot's scissors to shear from his head the token of his consecration, it was because the reality of the consecration, rude and external as that consecration was, both in itself and in its consequences, had passed ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... liked to shear those sheep; but I hadn't time to get a shed or anything ready—along towards Christmas there was a bit of a boom in the carrying line. Wethers in wool were going as high as thirteen to fifteen shillings at the Homebush ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... the war had revealed. Otherwise we should never on earth have suspected him of being so capable. But be it requested that he repair a sewing machine, a bicycle or a watch; sharpen a pair of scissors, put in a pane of glass, make over mattresses, shear a horse, a dog or a human, paint a sign, cover an umbrella, kill a pig or treat a sprain, Laigut never hesitates, Laigut is always found competent. Add to this his commerce in seeds and herbs, his talent ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... sheep to shear, Rainsford," said Laurence, as they entered the broker's office. "Don't clip him any closer than you did me, though he's dying to set up as a millionaire on ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... bag and brought out a roll of stout wire. "Run this from the top of the front pole on out, ten or twelve feet, and stretch it over a couple of shear poles. See? That'll stiffen the tent, and yet you can build a fire right under the wire, and it ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... bows and stern were raised about six inches by strips of the sides of the broken float nailed to the gunwale, and strengthened by cross-pieces of planking from the bottom. These were given considerable shear, so as to be lifted by a sea, instead of cutting into it. Besides these, rue-raddies, or shoulder-belts of hide, with a strap attached to the sides of the boat, were adapted to the height of each man, and each of the party was assigned a position in the craft, ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... long. Tie these two together at the ends making what the sailors call a "shears." Take the twelve-foot pole and run it down the ridge inside the tent, and out through the hole in the back. Now raise the ridge pole with one end stuck in the ground and the front end resting on the two shear poles and tie all three of them together. At the end of each seam along the hem you must work in a little eyelet hole for a short piece of twine to tie to the tent pegs. Stretch out the back triangle, pegging it down at the two corners on the ground, and then peg out each hole along the foot ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... congregation should carry a 'competent number of pieces, fixed and complete with powder and shot and swords, every Lord's-day at the meeting-house?' And, right well equipped 'with psalm-book, shot and powder-horn' sat that doughty man, Shear Yashub Millard along with Hezekiah Bristol and four others whose issue I have known pleasantly in the flesh here; and those of us who had no pieces wore 'coats basted with cotton-wool, and thus made defensive against Indian arrows.' Yet it bethought me ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... of us could be undertaken, it was necessary to shear off an awkward little bulge in the enemy's line, which included the ruined hamlet of Moyenneville. The corps on our right were to take part in an assault two days previous to the commencement of our own advance, so it was considered expedient ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... is his business and duty to cultivate the earth, and not exhaust it; to get two blades of grass this year where but one blade grew before; to gather thirty bushels of corn from the acre which produced but twenty bushels last year; to shear three pounds of wool off the sheep which five years ago gave but two pounds, and so on. He thinks to see how near the agricultural wind he can move and his sails not shake, or with how little labor ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... day, Joseph set to work with his shears, with Sam to help him. He did not shear so many sheep as the contract shearers, but he sheared well, leaving none of the bottom wool, and his employer was perfectly satisfied. He got through two score the first day; two and a half the next; and three the next. ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... know not what thou wilt do; whereas by this time most like she has been sold and bought and is dwelling in some lord's strong-house; some tyrant that needeth not money, and will not let his prey go for a prayer. Here, take thou thy gold again, for thou mayst well need it, and let me shear a lock of thy golden hair, and I shall be well apaid for my keeping silence concerning thy love. For I deem that it is even so, and that she is not thy sister, else hadst thou stayed at home, and prayed for her with book and priest and altar, and ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... swept of dust, and a sprinkling of the finest yellow sand from the innermost stratum of the adjoining sand-pit lightly scattered thereupon. Then were produced large knives and forks, which had been shrouded in darkness and grease since the last occasion of the kind, and bearing upon their sides, "Shear-steel, warranted," in such emphatic letters of assurance, that the warranter's name was not required as further proof, and not given. The key was left in the tap of the cider-barrel, instead of being carried in a pocket. And finally the tranter ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... it was everywhere resorted to.—The cutting apparatus of Bell's consisted of shears, one half stationary, the other vibrating, and turning on the bolt that confined them to the iron bar which extends across the front of the frame. The vibrating motion was given by connecting the back end of one shear to a bar—making the bolt the fulcrum—and which was attached to a crank, revolving by gear ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... God. And of the goodness of the Almighty he was quite as sure as of the badness of men. Assurance of his own salvation had come to him one day when he was shearing sheep, and when, as he related often, finding himself on his knees to shear, he remained to pray. Sundays and every Wednesday evening he wore a stove-pipe hat and a long frock coat of antique and rusty aspect. On his way to church—with hospitality even for the like of him, thank God!—he walked slowly with head ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... permission, by showing you your two children, your two jewels, killed by their own father. And I have punished the King for the caprice he took into his head, by making him first the judge of his brother, and afterwards the executioner of his children. But as I have wished only to shear and not to flay you, I desire now that all the poison may turn into sweetmeats for you. Therefore, go, take again your children and my grandchildren, who are more beautiful than ever. And you, Milluccio, embrace me. I receive you as my son-in-law and as my son. And I pardon ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... ware a sheep-gray cloke, Which was of the finest loke That could be cut with shear; His mittens were of bauzon's skin, {94h} His cockers were of cordiwin, {94i} {94j} ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... were hunters without dogs, fishers without hooks, and tillers without plow or spade. They show how much development life was capable of in the time before metals."[170] The palometa is a fish which weighs two or three pounds. It has fourteen teeth in each jaw so sharp that the Abipones shear sheep with the jaw.[171] Such cases might be pursued into great detail. They show acute observation, great ingenuity, clever adaptation, and teachableness. The lasso, bola, boomerang, and throw knife, as well as the throw stick, are products of persistent ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... Potatoes Schoharie County. Silver medal Potatoes Schuyler County. Silver medal Potatoes George Scott, Bath. Bronze medal Potatoes.—Rose White, Early Doe, Early Hero, Early Wheeler Chas. J. Settle, Cobleskill. Bronze medal Potatoes.—Burbank, Sir Walter Raleigh, Money Makers, Carmen No. 1 Frank Shear, Standards Potatoes.—Endurance W. C. Skiff, Davenport Center. Silver medal Potatoes.—Early Ohio, White Star, Early Puritan, Stray Beauty, Blue Victor, June Eating, Rock Rose, Early Sunrise, Everett, Calvert, White Peachblow, Carmen No. 1, White ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... happiness thrones and sceptres were there would not be so frequent strife about the getting or holding of them; there would be more principalities than princes; for a prince is the pastor of the people. He ought to shear, not to flay his sheep; to take their fleeces, not their the soul of the commonwealth, and ought to cherish it as his own body. Alexander the Great was wont to say, "He hated that gardener that plucked his herbs or flowers up by the roots." A man may milk a beast till the ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... was to do it, have amply filled the capabilities of Government for several generations now. Hard tasks both, it would appear. In accomplishing the first, for example, have not heaven-born Chancellors of the Exchequer had to shear us very bare; and to leave an overplus of Debt, or of fleeces shorn before they are grown, justly esteemed among the wonders of the world? Not a first-rate keeping of the peace, this, we begin to surmise! At least it ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... quoth Charlie Wood, "O tarry, master mine! It's ill to shear a yearling hog, Or twist the ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... parading my own knowledge, "but what about injury to the masses of nerve cells? And you'd have to shear off the nerves ...
— A Matter of Proportion • Anne Walker
... without might was of little worth? and whether a claim, without the power of enforcing it, was not nugatory in the copyhold of rival states? He compared the reasonings of ministers to a man, who, full of his prerogative of dominion over a few beasts of the field, should assert his right to shear a wolf, because it had wool upon its back, without considering whether he had the power of using the shears, or whether the animal would submit to the operation of shearing. He remarked:—"Are we yet to be ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... (dropping the bow and seizing his bill) Ay, Thorbrand, is it thou? That's a rare blade, To shear through hemp and gut.... Let your wife have it For snipping ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... hacking, low as bracken Stretch the foe the turf beside. Our stinging kerne of aspect stern That love the fatal game, That revel rife till drunk with strife, And dye their cheeks with flame, Are strange to fear;—their broadswords shear Their foemen's crested brows, The red-coats feel the barb of steel, And hot its venom glows. The few have won fields, many a one, In grappling conflicts' play; Then let us march, nor let our hearts A start of fear ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... characteristics are the perforated and striated scutiform area on the front of the cell and the perforated, or apparently perforated pyramidal lateral processes above each avicularium; these processes are much developed, and give the cell the form of a broad inverted shear-head. It seems to be an abundant species in Bass Strait, and it occurs also in New Zealand. ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... I sought before. 30 Once I was skill'd in every herb that grew, And every plant that drinks the morning dew; Ah, wretched shepherd, what avails thy art, To cure thy lambs, but not to heal thy heart! Let other swains attend the rural care, Feed fairer flocks, or richer fleeces shear: But nigh yon mountain let me tune my lays, Embrace my love, and bind my brows with bays. That flute is mine which Colin's tuneful breath Inspired when living, and bequeath'd in death; 40 He said, 'Alexis, take this pipe—the same That taught the groves my ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... to shear off, cleave, hew to pieces: pres. sg. onne heoru bunden ... swn ofer helme andweard scire (hews off the boar-head on ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... us, but we brought our guns to bear on them, which made them shear off for a time, yet they kept up a fire at us as long as they were in range. The next time the Turks came up, some of their men got on board our ship, and set to work to cut the sails, and do us all kinds of harm. So, as ten of our men lay dead, and most of ...
— Robinson Crusoe - In Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... was effected through the agency of Julius and Octavius was necessary for the continuance of civilization, which was threatened with extinction through the plundering processes of proprietors and proconsuls. The Roman Emperor was the shepherd, who, though he might shear his sheep close to their skins, and not unfrequently convert many of them into mutton, for his own profit or pleasure, would nevertheless protect them against the wolves. He stood between the imperial race, of which he was himself ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... day before, but there was a black boy and a station-hand or two about the yards and six or eight shearers and rouseabouts, and a teamster camped in the men's huts—they were staying over the holidays to shear stragglers and clean up generally. Old Peter and a jackaroo were out on the run watching a ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson |
