"Sprite" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is edged with white; To inch and rock the sea-mews fly; The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite, Whose screams forbode ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... sprite, I'll promise you that," he answered, smiling; "and I am incapable of deceiving you, for I, ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... tower erects its battlements bravely; my Anecdotes of Painting thrive exceedingly: thanks to the gout, that has pinned me to my chair: think of Ariel the sprite in a ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... The little sprite that ran along the upper edge of the court in a row, the star-figure, impressed me as making an unfortunate contrast with the stern angel, repeated in front of each of the two arches. My criticism brought out the reply that it was beautiful in itself ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... there once lived a Neck, or Water Sprite, who desired, above all things, to obtain a human soul. Now when the sun shone this Neck rose up and sat upon the waves and played upon his harp. And he played so sweetly that the winds stayed to listen to him, and the sun lingered in his setting, and the moon rose before her time. ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... Feldberg tears a raging Foaming torrent through the forests To the Rhine—its name is Wehra. In the narrow valley standeth 'Midst the rocks a single fir-tree; In the branches sat the haggard Wicked wood-sprite Meysenhartus, Who to-day behaved quite badly: Showing his sharp teeth and grinning, Tore a branch off from the fir-tree, And kept gnawing at a pine-cone; Clambered often quite indignant Up and down just like a squirrel; ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... through many perilous assays: He knew the divers want of mortal ways, And in the minds of men had great insight; Which with sage counsel, when they went astray, He could inform and them reduce aright; And all the passions heal which wound the weaker sprite. ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... men and women of "Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye" are all in harmony with one another, with Borrow, and with Borrow's world. Jasper Petulengro and his wife, his sister Ursula, the gigantic Tawno Chikno, the witch Mrs. Herne, and the evil sprite Leonora, Thurtell, the fighting men, the Irish outlaw Jerry Grant, who was suspected of raising a storm by "something Irish and supernatural" to win a fight, Murtagh, that wicked innocent, the old apple-woman, Blazing Bosville, Isopel Berners, the jockey who drove one hundred and ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... walked alongside, though from time to time the little sprite would insist on taking Phil's hand; or it might be that of stout Lub. She had made him promise he would send her his picture when he got home; and Lub always grinned when X-Ray Tyson or Ethan tried to joke him ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... not brain power; it was only intensity of feeling—nervous feeling. I don't know ... perhaps.... She has lived her life ... yes, within certain limits she has lived her life. None of us do more than that. True. I remember the first time I saw her. Sharp, little, and merry—a changeable little sprite. I thought she had ugly hands; so she has, and yet I forgot all about her hands before I had known her a month. It is now seven years ago. How time passes! I was very young then. What battles we have had, what quarrels! Still we had good times together. She never lost sight of ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... deities], Odin; Mumbo Jumbo; good genius, tutelary genius; demiurge, familiar; sibyl; fairy, fay; sylph, sylphid; Ariel^, peri, nymph, nereid, dryad, seamaid, banshee, benshie^, Ormuzd; Oberon, Mab, hamadryad^, naiad, mermaid, kelpie^, Ondine, nixie, sprite; denizens of the air; pixy &c (bad spirit) 980. mythology; heathen-mythology, fairy-mythology; Lempriere, folklore. Adj. god-like, fairy-like; sylph-like; sylphic^. Phr. you moonshine revelers and shades of ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... in fennel stalks Through windy ways is borne and densest night, Till where the outpost shivering sentry walks Beating the minutes into hours, the light Touches the guarded pile and, flaring, balks Beasts padding near and each unvisioned sprite By old dread apprehended; and new gladness Shakes in the village prone in ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... Sense! Seen seldom by us mortals dense, Come, sprite, inform, inhabit me And teach me art ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... her dreams, and benevolently disposed towards mankind in general. She lingered at her toilet, grew hypercritical in articles of taste, and found defects in beauty without the shadow of a blemish. Had some wicked sprite but whispered in her ear one thought injurious to the memory of her departed husband, Margaret would have shrunk from its reception, and would have scorned to acknowledge it as her own. Time, she felt and owned with gratitude, had assuaged her sorrows—had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... forgetful of the companions of her days, intoxicated by the moonlight until her blood raced madly through her veins and she was filled with an intense desire to go out and dance in the garden and flit in and out among the trees like a moon sprite. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... looks, though she's beautiful, as some blithe sprite met by chance in a forest. It isn't only her youth, for she is too absurdly young. A girl, to be taken seriously by a grown man, should be at least one-and-twenty. She is, I believe, on the lilied edge of eighteen. Ridiculous! Yet where ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... "the Brownies went on with their work in spite of the bottle-green suit, and Trout's luck returned to the old house once more. Before long Tommy began to work for the farmers, and Baby grew up into a Brownie, and made (as girls are apt to make) the best house-sprite of all. For, in the Brownie's habits of self-denial, thoughtfulness, consideration, and the art of little kindnesses, boys are, I am afraid, as a general rule, somewhat behindhand with their sisters. Whether this altogether proceeds ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... could I picture thee, a dusky sprite, With Dryad hoofs on Thracian ledges drumming, When day is slipping from the arms of night And all the hushed leaves whisper, "Pan is coming!" And thou before him, leaping with delight, Stirring all birds to song, all bees to humming And buds to blossoming—but ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... been a sprite to listen from some twig of that then stripling willow which the poet had planted with his own hand, to talk of those who chatted for a while under its shade, before they went in-doors to an elegant dinner at the usual ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... happy, happy elf! (But stop,—first let me kiss away that tear)— Thou tiny image of myself! (My love, he's poking peas into his ear!) Thou merry, laughing sprite! With spirits feather-light, Untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by sin— (Good Heavens! the child is ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... accidentally spoke; and immediately the son dropped a tear, and forced himself out of his father's arms, piteously exclaiming: 'Father, father, my mother spoke! You cannot keep me. I must go.' He disappeared, and, reaching home, the father found the sprite again on the hearth." The ghostly father's services were called into requisition a second time; and better luck awaited an effort under his direction after the performance of a second miracle like the first. For this ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... come by this day's light; Fly upon swiftest wing round field and height, [2] But chiefly let one Cottage hear the tale; There let a mystery of joy prevail, 5 The kitten frolic, like a gamesome sprite, [3] And Rover whine, as at a second sight Of near-approaching good that shall not fail: And from that Infant's face let joy appear; Yea, let our Mary's one companion child—10 That hath her six weeks' solitude beguiled With intimations manifold and dear, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... are that unlucky Sprite! Like Will-a-whisp, a wandring light, Through ditch, thro' bog, who lead astray Benighted swains, who lose their way; You pinch the slattern black and blue, You silver drop in huswife's shoe; For call you Robin and sweet Puck, You do their ...
— A Fairy Tale in Two Acts Taken from Shakespeare (1763) • William Shakespeare
... cold, correct, student-like playing of Joachim is superior to that of Sarasate. But come and judge for yourself,—if you have never heard him, it will be a sort of musical revelation to you,—he is not so much a violinist, as a human violin played by some invisible sprite of song. London listens to him, but doesn't know quite what to make of him,—he is a riddle that only poets can read. If we start now, we shall be just in time,—I have two ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... which is believed to refer to this building. In a plan drawn in Bishop Kennett's time and dedicated to him, the south part is called "The Hostry Chapel, now the Chapter-House," and the north part is called the "Chapel of St. Sprite or the Holy Ghost." In some plans it is called the vestry. It has also been employed as a muniment room, as a Chapter-house, and (as now) as a ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... water sprite who gave its name to the Elbe River in Germany, the Neck, from whom the Neckar derives its name, and old Father Rhine, with his numerous daughters (tributary streams), the most famous of all the lesser water divinities is the Lorelei, the siren maiden who sits upon the Lorelei ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... sprite got in, keeping her head and the little cup of a bonnet protruding every moment to look round; yet if it could have been seen in the dark, with such a sly, half-humorous eye, as betokened one of those curiously-made ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... blown down, Or last year's birds' nests scattered on the lea, Or some stale scandal rampant in the town— Sees everywhere the petty work of night, Of sneaking winds and cunning, coward rats, Of hooting owls, of bugaboo and sprite, Of roaches, wolves, and ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... towld, Och hone! widow machree, But you're keeping some poor fellow out in the cowld, Och hone! widow machree. With such sins on your head, Sure your peace would be fled, Could you sleep in your bed, Without thinking to see Some ghost or some sprite, That would wake you each night, ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... Capocchio, And in the neck-joint sticking deep his fangs, Dragg'd him, that o'er the solid pavement rubb'd His belly stretch'd out prone. The other shape, He of Arezzo, there left trembling, spake; "That sprite of air is Schicchi; in like mood Of random mischief vent he still his spite." To whom I answ'ring: "Oh! as thou dost hope, The other may not flesh its jaws on thee, Be patient to inform us, who it is, Ere it speed hence."—" That is the ancient soul Of wretched Myrrha," he replied, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... speck, a mist, a shape, I wist! And still it neared and neared: As if it dodged a water-sprite, 155 It plunged and tacked ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and the Danish 'Spogelse,' without the sibilant aspiration. These words are general names for any kind of spirit, and correspond to the 'pouk' of Piers Ploughman. In Danish 'spog' means a joke, trick, or prank, and hence the character of Robin Goodfellow. In Iceland Puki is regarded as an evil sprite; and in the language of that country, 'at pukra' means both to make a murmuring noise and to steal clandestinely. The names of these spirits seem to have originated in their boisterous temper—'spuken,' Germ. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... suns prevail, And rest on the parching land, The cool sea breeze would I inhale, O'er the ocean breathing bland. A restless sprite, that likes delight, In calm and tempest found, 'Twere joy to me o'er the bonnie blue sea For ever ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... told, for it seems impossible to set limits to the future conquests of the latter, which is probably destined to perform miracles un-dreamt of to-day, perhaps coupled in some unthought-of way, with radium, the youngest sprite of the weird, uncanny tribe of mysterious agents. Uranium, the supposed basis of the latest discovery, Radium, has only one-millionth part of the heat of the latter. The slow-moving earth takes twenty-four hours to turn upon its axis. Radium covers an equal distance while ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... many others to which he had devoted his energy? Beyond Mr. Bell's own magnetic personality there was only slender foundation for his faith for in spite of the efforts of both men the harmonic telegraph failed to take form. Instead, like a tantalizing sprite, it danced before them, always beckoning, never materializing. In theory it was perfectly consistent but in practise it could not be coaxed into behaving as it logically should. Had it but been possible for those working on it to realize that beyond their temporary failure ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... middle of civilisation—and yet still lives as a natural power in the people—is represented, on the whole, in pigmy proportions in the south. Here they have a little terror of small hobgoblins, good-natured fairies, a love-sick river-sprite, and so forth, beings who with us in the north, almost go about our houses like superstition's tame domestic animals. You have there, too, good-natured elves, who carry on their peaceful boating and coasting trade invisibly among the people. But then, in ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... some kind of opposition to his mother—had made living problems harder for her until she had won the confidence of others. The man must be, Travers concluded, a fanatic and an ignoramus, and to think of him holding power over that sprite of the woods! ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... to make him doubt of the Matter; and he dreamt of nothing but Spectres and Devils: The very Habit of his Mind was got into his Face, that he was so pale, and meagre and dejected, that you would say he was rather a Sprite than a Man: And in short, he was not far from being stark mad, and would have been so, had it ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... calculated to create sensations that must send the circling current into rapid motion, and animate the heart with thrilling raptures of delight. Before the mirror, in all the grace of youthful loveliness and perfect symmetry of form, the divine little fairy sprite, the all-conquering Andalusian Venus, Mercandotti, was exhibiting her soft, plump, love-inspiring person in pirouette: before her stood the now happy swain, the elegant H——— B-, on whose shoulder rested the Earl of Fe-, admiring with equal ecstasy the finished movements of his accomplished ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... with them to the Tanners' to make a hurried change in her dress and pick up her suit-case, which was already packed. As they rode away from the school-house Margaret looked back and saw Rosa Rogers posing in one of her sprite dances in the school-yard, saw her kiss her hand laughingly toward their party, and saw the flutter of a handkerchief in young Forsythe's hand. It was all very general and elusive, a passing bit of fun, but it left an uncomfortable impression on the teacher's ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... me lighter: for the dwarf sprang from my shoulder, the prying sprite! And it squatted on a stone in front of me. There was however a ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... wistful alto; and leaping up here and there above the throng of sounds, delicate treble shrieks and trills of trembling joy. I know not whether you can fit it into your laws of music, any more than you can the song of that Ariel sprite who dwells in the Eolian harp, or the roar of the waves on ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... the spirit of the blue and golden May day, cool enough to be pleasant, warm enough to be a joy, or the little breeze which came floating across the campus carrying an intoxicating scent of lilacs, but whatever the reason, some sprite seemed to have taken possession of Judith, and she threw herself into the game with such enthusiasm, such abandon, such elfin-like nimbleness that Catherine couldn't ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... probably watching for an opportunity to gobble up the goldfish. We took his part, however, and strenuously defended his moral character, and patronized him in all ways. We gave him the name of Unke, and maintained that he was a well-conducted, philosophical old water-sprite, who showed his good taste in wanting to take up his abode in our conservatory. We even defended his personal appearance, praised the invisible green coat which he wore on his back, and his gray vest, and solemn gold spectacles; and ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... into the heart of the wild and beautiful region, the horizon seemed continually to fill with always vaster shapes, that lifted themselves, or emerged, over and from behind each other, like mustering clans of giants, bestirred and curious, because of the invasion among their fastnesses of this sprite of steam. ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... her innings; not only was she prettily dressed, presenting the most joyous of pictures, as with golden curls flying about her shoulders she flitted in and out of the rooms like a sprite, but she was withal so polite in her greetings, dropping to everyone a little French courtesy when she spoke, and all in her quaint, broken dialect, that everybody fell in love with her at sight. None of the other mothers had such ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... more willing bent to shore, Never tired pilgrim's limbs affected slumber more, Than my wearied sprite now longs to fly out of my troubled breast. O come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... moment over Little Jack Sprite. It did not seem quite relevant to the nursery classic which, only a few years back, she had read many times ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... enough for two, and here she stands, on her tiptoes, reaching up to my window, as if it were not an over-fed girl that stood in her garments, but some airy sprite. We may laugh, but Klea, poor thing, she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... stung with bitter surges, in whose might I toss, a cockleshell? The dreadful night Marshals its undefeated dark and raves In brutal madness, reeling over graves Of vanquished men, long-sunken out of sight, Sent wailing down to glut the ghoulish sprite Who haunts foul seaweed forests and their caves. No parting cloud reveals a watery star, My cries are washed away upon the wind, My cramped and blistering hands can find no spar, My eyes with hope o'erstrained, are growing blind. But painted on the ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... she had a special affection for poor Sprite, the pony which threw her,—special, I mean, since the accident,—regarding him as in some sense the angel which had driven her out of paradise into a better world. If ever he got loose, and Connie was anywhere about, ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... anything of French literature,—which is too absurd an idea,—serves them only to say nothing to uncertain hairy foreigners who haunt society, and to understand their nothings, in response. I am really touched for this Ariel, this tricksy sprite of speech when I know that it must do the bidding of those who can never fit its airy felicity to any worthy purpose. I have tried these accomplishel damsels who speak French and Italian as well as ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... heard no more, For modern taste turns Nature out of door; Who ne'er again her former sway will boast, Till, to complete her works, she starts a ghost. If such the mode, what can we hope to-night, Who rashly dare approach without a sprite? No dreadful cavern, no midnight scream, No rosin flames, nor e'en one flitting gleam. Nought of the charms so potent to invite The monstrous charms of terrible delight. Our present theme the German Muse supplies, But rather ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald
... man who hadn't the politeness to perform this little ceremony. He made a cradle for his baby out of the elder tree. But the sprite was offended, and she used to come and pull the baby out of the cradle by its legs, and pinch it and make it cry, so that it was quite impossible to leave the poor little thing in the elder cradle, and they had to weave one of basket-work for ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... to this little sprite, "fetch me the flower called Love-in-idleness. The juice of that little purple flower laid on the eyes of those who sleep will make them, when they wake, to love the first thing they see. I will put some of the juice of that flower on my Titania's eyes, and when she wakes she ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... carrying his shoes under his arms and looking wise, followed by cronies, fairies, goblins, and all the troops just loosed from Noah's storm-tossed ark. They walked, they strutted, they soared, they swam, and some came in through fire. One sprite climbed up to the moon on a ladder made of leaves and frozen dew-drops. A peacock with a great hooked bill flew in and out among the branches of a pomegranate-tree pecking the rosy fruit. He screamed so loud that Apollo turned in his chariot of flame and from his burnished ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... disvastigi. Spread (extend) etendi. Sprig vergeto, brancxeto. Sprightly sprita, viva. Sprightliness viveco. Spring salti. Spring (season) printempo. Spring (of watch, etc.) risorto. Springy elasta. Sprinkle sxprucigi sur. Sprinkler sxprucigilo. Sprite feino, koboldo. Sprout (bud) elkreski. Spue vomi. Spume sxauxmo. Spur sprono. Spurious falsa. Spurn eljxeti. Spurt elsxpruci. Spy spioni. Spy ekvidi, esplori. Spyglass vidilo. Squabble malpaceti. Squad tacxmento, roto. Squadron (milit.) skadro. Squadron (naval) eskadro. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... in his face, and sprang down the beach like a squirrel. He had wisdom enough, however, to say and do all this in the quietest possible manner; and when he entered the sea he did so with as much caution as Gascoyne himself had done, insomuch that he seemed to melt away like a mischievous sprite. ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... artistic power, though in surroundings unsuited to her skill. He called it genius. In an open pavilion, whose roughness the white sand and the white-green surf helped to condone, on a tawdry stage, she appeared, a slight, pale, winsome beauty, clad in green and white gauze, looking like a sprite of the near-by sea. The witchery of her dancing showed rare art, which was lost altogether on the simple crowd. She danced carelessly, as if mocking the rustics, and made her ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... fretted stone balconies of the quaint and crowded houses. It was not an honest and single-minded snow-storm, such as would seek to shroud the whole city in its delicate white mantle, but rather a tricksy and capricious sprite, that neglected one spot to hurl itself with wanton violence on another. Borne on the breath of a keen and shifting wind, it came tossing gleefully full in the face of a solitary artisan who, wrapped in a heavy cloak, ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... complained to him of the sprite who carried the bow. "He is behaving badly," she said; "he ...
— The Unruly Sprite - The Unknown Quantity, A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... Hee doth not faine His lookes to th' votes o'th' vulgar straine, The popular stage, and publike showes Ne're moves him, nor the ayre that blowes With swift applause; Hee's blest whose sprite Fall Fortune sad, or fall she light, Hath ne're exprest, to th'standers by, A low complaint, or haughty cry; But, lest the curious Fates displease— Hee should, holds modestly ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski
... blackening wave is edged with white; To inch and rock the sea-mews fly; The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite, Whose screams forebode ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... to study Hebrew), with the consciousness that he had been in that attitude nearly an hour, and had thought of nothing but Gwendolen and her husband. To be an unusual young man means for the most part to get a difficult mastery over the usual, which is often like the sprite of ill-luck you pack up your goods to escape from, and see grinning at you from the top of your luggage van. The peculiarities of Deronda's nature had been acutely touched by the brief incident and words which made the history of his intercourse with Gwendolen; and this evening's slight ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... They would roll up crisp and tight As I went on in the light Of the sun, which my own sprite Seemed to outvie. ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... had before. I knew there was an eager face that always brightened when I came, light feet that flew to welcome me, and hands that loved to minister to every want of mine. Even when I sat engrossed among my books, there was a pleasant consciousness that I was the possessor of a household sprite whom a look could summon and a gesture banish. I loved her as I loved a picture or a flower,—a little better than my horse and hound,—but far less than I loved my most ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... to be Will-o'-the-Wisp, and a plump, spooky sprite she made with dabs of phosphorus upon her fluttering black cambric costume, and funny peaked cap, which glowed uncannily when the room was darkened. She carried a little electric bulb lantern which unexpectedly flashed its ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... that I had been so slow to penetrate the secret of their charm. That eager, radiant elf, the Princess Somdetch Chow Fa-ying, [Footnote: "First-Born of the Skies."] the king's darling (of whom, by and by, I shall have a sadder tale to tell), had become a sprite of sunshine and gladness amid the sombre shadows of those walls. In her deep, dark, lustrous eyes, her simple, trusting ways, there was a springtide of refreshment, a pure, pervading radiance, that brightened the darkest thing it touched. Even the ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... admirable books, then the bookman is much exhilarated. Because of the mischief that is in him he will not relieve those two excellent men of that disgraceful Italian's company for a little space, but if he finds that the domestic sprite has thrust a Puritan between two Anglican theologians he effects a separation without delay, for a religious controversy with its din and clatter is more than he ...
— Books and Bookmen • Ian Maclaren
... heard a doleful voice from its waves repeatedly exclaim, "Lost! lost!" They followed the sound, which seemed to be the voice of a drowning person, and, to their astonishment, found that it ascended the river; still they continued to follow the cry of the malicious sprite, and, arriving before dawn at the very sources of the river, the voice was now heard descending the opposite side of the mountain in which they arise. The fatigued and deluded travellers now relinquished the pursuit, and had no sooner done so, than they ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... seems so selfish to have one. I am anything—a fay, a sprite, an elf." She freed her hands with a sudden twist and ran laughing ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Savage, and almost brutal in their expression, still an atmosphere of fun hovered about them—a Will-o'-the-wisp sort of playfulness, unnatural and decoying, like the capricious gambols of that renowned and mischievous sprite. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... rise twenty-five?" cried Erma. She was running about excitedly like a water-sprite. Her red sweater gleamed in the sullen gray light. The rain was trickling from her Tam-o-Shanter; but she was oblivious of all, save the ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... back and forth beneath the tree for hours; four times she crouched and sprang at the dancing sprite above her, but might as well have clutched at the illusive wind that murmured through ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... so good an account of your activity and interests, and shall always hear from you with pleasure; though I am, and must continue, a mere sprite of the inkbottle, unseen in the flesh. Please remember me to your wife and to the four-year-old sweetheart, if she be not too engrossed with higher matters. Do you know where the road crosses the burn under Glencorse Church? Go there, and say a prayer for me: moriturus salutat. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... detailed account of the yech or yâch of Kashmîr see Ind. Ant. vol. xi. pp. 260-261 and footnotes. Shortly, it is a humorous though powerful sprite in the shape of an animal smaller than a cat, of a dark colour, with a white cap on its head. The feet are so small as to be almost invisible. When in this shape it has a peculiar cry—chot, chot, chû-û-ot, chot. All this probably refers ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... 'There the sprite had decidedly the advantage. You could "gar her greet," but you could not "gar her know." She had only to hold out; and when Miss Martindale found it time to go home to dinner, and began to grow ashamed of her position, ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ripples of the sea, or making bows of coloured light on the waterfall? Is not the sunbeam so dear to us that it has become a household word for all that is merry and gay? and when we want to describe the dearest, busiest little sprite amongst us, who wakes a smile on all faces wherever she goes, do we not call her ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... whole stock of glass, which was well worth eight dollars, and how, in short, the mound itself had suddenly disappeared. He declared that he knew not in the least how to recover his loss and bring the business to a good ending. The compassionate mountain sprite comforted him, told him who he was, and that he himself had played him the trick, and at the same time bade him be of good cheer, for his losses should be made good ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... simple ring with a single stone To the vulgar eye no stone of price: Whisper the right word, that alone— Forth starts a sprite, like fire from ice, And lo, you are lord (says an Eastern scroll) Of heaven and earth, lord whole and sole Through the power ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... fair and lovely sprite, Since first from out an ancient lay I saw gleam forth thy fitful light, How hast ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... eye fired up, as there ran to her brain some little sprite out of the House of Memory and told her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... through the night, Some short space o'er the green; And there the little trotting Sprite Distinctly might be seen. ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... oftentimes longed to make an acquaintance with one. By the way, I should think this building of nooks and corners was admirably adapted for the carrying out some marvel of the sort. Pray, is there not some hobgoblin or merry sprite playing his antics about your ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... out, foaming and spluttering as though it thought Jan had been fooled. Sometimes it appeared to be running backward, and then suddenly it seemed to be racing forward, and always it kept playing its game of hide-and-seek with them all, and laughing and dancing like a merry elf or water-sprite. The river kept all of them interested until they stopped at a little village, which the muleteer said was Cantine ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... heir, was with the prince; also, the lad's sister, a wee brown sprite, very pretty, very serious, very winning, delicately moulded, costumed like the daintiest butterfly, a dear little fairyland princess, gravely willing to be friendly with the strangers, but in the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... him to the brain; And there they made me on my paddle lean, And look at them for hours;—accursed scene! When they would glide to that smooth eddy-space, Then bid me leap and join them in the place; And at my groans each little villain sprite Enjoy'd my pains and vanish'd in delight. "In one fierce summer-day, when my poor brain Was burning hot, and cruel was my pain, Then came this father-foe, and there he stood With his two boys again upon the flood: There was more mischief in their eyes, ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... find the countess-dowager in a state more easily imagined than described. Some sprite, favourable to the peace of Hartledon, had been writing confidentially from Ireland regarding Kirton and his doings. That her eldest son was about to steal a march on her and marry again seemed almost ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... as a stone. The chill towards Nichola that the presence of the girl,—sprite, witch, troll that she was—brought with it came like a doom. He knew what a fool he was, as he had said. But he was powerless in the grasp of the idealizing passion. He cared more for Avice's finger-tips than for ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... for the fourth time. And lo! advancing to me eagerly along the causeway seemed the very sprite of Alastor himself! There was a star upon his forehead, and around his young face there glowed an aureole of gold and roses—to speak figuratively, for the star upon his brow was hope, and the gold and roses encircling ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... or some mischievous sprite, I know not," growled the Hebrew, "but there is no need for more than ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... the immortal harmony about to gush, like a mountain torrent, from the teeming strings; when lo! to our unmitigated disgust, it glides noiselessly along its hitherto resounding path, for—ye gods and little fishes!—some murderous wretch, at the instigation of we know not what evil sprite, has greased the horsehair, for which we solemnly devote him to the "bowstring," the first time ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... Herford, he is an elf, a sprite, a creature of fantasy, who may be—and, I rejoice to say, is—in this world, but certainly is not of it. This Oliver is in the line of Puck and Mercutio and Lamb and Hood and other lovers and makers of nonsense, ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... command thee, into the air! — exercise thy natural vocation of raising tempests, and do not excite any more wind in this sad unlucky body!' This man was immediately turned away to make room for a third patient, who, in the Irishman's opinion, was only tormented by a little bit of a sprite, who could not withstand his command for an instant. He Pretended that he recognized this sprite by some marks which were invisible to the company, to whom he turned with a smile, and said, 'This sort of spirit does not often do much harm, and is always very diverting.' ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... A fairy or water-sprite that resides in the neighbourhood of the Orkneys is popularly known as Tangie, so-called from tang,, the seaweed with which he is covered. Occasionally he makes his appearance as a little horse, and at other times as ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... the Unseen, and about the young monarch hovered the benignant influences that had watched his infancy, and now rightly interpreted the sorrow of his heart. In sooth, that this sorrow was matter of rejoicing in the Air, I gather from the joyous mien of that river-sprite which one day surprised him as he languidly mused in a balcony that overhung the water, and spoke to him in accents strange to his ear and yet at ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... were like the work of dreams: they were Kubla Khan, only more so. Here and there was radiance like the flash of a diamond, but each poem, almost each verse and line, was marred by some fault or lack which seemed wilful perversity, like the work of an evil sprite. It was like a case of jeweller's wares set before you, with each ring unfinished, each bracelet too large or too small for its purpose, each breastpin without its fastening, each necklace purposely broken. I turned ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... arch sprite Adventure need to beckon twice to Rudolf Steiner, his true follower. But twice it had been done, ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... yet seen enough of joy. It bears the reputation of an elusive sprite with finger always at lip bidding farewell. In certain dark periods, especially in times of international warfare, it threatens to vanish altogether from the earth. It is then the first duty of all peaceful folk to find and hold fast to joy, keeping it ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... and telling me interesting stories of their habits and dispositions. Each had a name, and some answered to their names when she called them. At least, she thought that they did, and I did not doubt it when I saw them swoop down to dip their bills in the flowers she held up, as she called "Sprite" and "Bright," and "Sweet" and "Swift," and the like crisp, short names in a voice that was like the tinkle of a little bell. It was a pretty sight,—the tiny woman, all white from cap to toe, standing in the full tide of sunbeams, bunches of honeysuckle and ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... finds rest. No sacrifice shall he repent of ever! But from a formal, written, sealed attest, As from a spectre, all men shrink forever. The word and spirit die together, Killed by the sight of wax and leather. What wilt thou, evil sprite, from me? Brass, marble, parchment, paper, shall it be? Shall I subscribe with pencil, pen or graver? Among them all thy ...
— Faust • Goethe
... radiantly good-looking, and likely to attract attention even in circles where pretty women were plentiful as blackberries in a September thicket, but to-day, in Medenham's eyes, she was a woodland sprite, an ethereal creature cast in no mortal mold. So enthralled was he by the vision that he failed to note her attire. She wore the muslin dress of the previous night, and this, in itself, might have prepared him for ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... was nervous about going out, as Miss Sallie had made dreadful suggestions about wolves and wild cats, yet she slipped out on the tiny porch. Far away through the trees and up the steep hillside she saw flying like a deer, a thin, brown creature. Was it human or a sprite? Mollie could not guess. She caught a glimpse of it, but it had been impossible to observe it accurately, so fast it flew. There was only a whirr of flying feet, and a flash of brown and scarlet to be seen. Could it be the famous ghost of Lost ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... played was indeed wonderful. This was not for the delight of children: no happy sprite with dancing feet could maintain this measure. It was music for the most advanced, enlightened intelligence,—for the soul that music had quickened to far depths,—for the heart that had suffered, triumphed, and gained the kingdom of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... home he talked seriously to the sprite, and told him how impolite he had been, and arranged a plan for his schooling in botany, diplomacy, music, psychology, ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... the same Isabel whom Clara last remembered with her baby in her lap, beautiful and almost as inanimate as a statue? There was scarcely more change from the long-frocked infant to the bustling important sprite, than from that fair piece of still life to the active house-mother. Unruffled grace was innate; every movement had a lofty, placid deliberation and simplicity, that made her like a disguised princess; and though her beauty was a little ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... intermittent double knock of the wood-pecker, or the drowsy croak of some early roosting bird; all suggestion of the settlement, with all traces of human contiguity, were left far behind. It was therefore with a strange and nervous sense of being softly hailed by some woodland sprite that he seemed to hear his own name faintly wafted upon the air. He turned quickly; it was Cressy, panting behind him! Even then, in her white closely gathered skirts, her bared head and graceful arching neck bent forward, her flying braids freed from the straw hat which she had swung ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... I cannot forget him, The fearful Geography Sprite. He has my first thought in the morning, He has ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... sprite," he continued, "thy power and glory recede! Man flies over thee—thou mayst go and ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... of a few moments, then he hurries up-stairs. The tower door is open, and there is no one to be seen. He keeps on and on until he catches a flutter of a white dress. Cecil is running around the observatory, and his heart beats as he glances at the dazzling little sprite, with her sparkling eyes and her hair a golden mist about her face. He could watch forever, but it is a ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... a mist, a shape, I wist! And still it near'd and near'd; And, as if it dodg'd a water-sprite, It ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... heart with the tenderest pity of life, the compassion of happiness; and he knew too that the path upon which he was about to set out led through the same glooms, and was no ideal career. But perhaps because Mr Wentworth was young—perhaps because he was possessed by that delicate sprite more dainty than any Ariel who puts rosy girdles round the world while his time of triumph lasts—it is certain that the new Rector of Carlingford turned back into Grange Lane without the least shadow upon his mind or timidity in ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... summer bird Still hail'd him from no mortal fowl alive, But from the cuckoo-clock just striking five— And Tinker's ear and Tinker's nose were keen— Off started he, and then a form was seen Dark'ning the doorway; and a smaller sprite, And then another, peer'd into the night, Ready to follow free on Tinker's track, But for the mother's hand that held her back; And yet a moment—a few steps—and there, Pull'd o'er the threshold by that eager pair, He sits by his own hearth, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... out of the wagon, like a bird let loose from an imprisoning hand. He saw her running like a swift sweet sprite along the ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... "Slanting Eyes" (see Cherokee Myths), a giant hunter who lives in one of the great mountains of the Blue Ridge and owns all the game. Others are the Little Men, probably the two Thunder boys; the Little People, the fairies who live in the rock cliffs; and even the Detsata, a diminutive sprite who holds the place of our Puck. One unwritten formula, which could not be obtained correctly by dictation, was addressed to the "Red-Headed Woman, whose hair hangs down to ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... asked Mrs. Friend. And the man beside her noticed the sudden gleam in her quiet little face, that rare or evanescent sprite of laughter or satire that even the dwellers in Lancaster ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Tod," remonstrated Budge; "Joseph's coat was just as bloody as Goliath's head was." Then Budge turned to me and explained that "all Tod likes Goliath for is 'cause when his head was cut off it was all bloody." And then Toddie—the airy sprite whom his mother described as being irresistibly drawn to whatever was beautiful—Toddie glared upon me as a butcher's apprentice might stare at a ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... every lung and tongue and throat, Ay, every rhythm and rhyme Of everything that lives and loves And upward, ever upward moves From lowly to sublime! Earth's multitudinous Sons of Light, I heard them lift their lyric might With each and every chanting sprite That lit the sky that wondrous night As far as ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... the loggia. We were great pals now, Boy and I. I had never met anyone in the least like him. At one moment he was a human boy, almost a child; at another his brain leaped beyond mine, and he became a poet or a philosopher; again he was an elfin sprite, a creature for whom Puck was the one thinkable name. There was a single thing only, about which you could always be sure. He would never be ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... of the black water-deeps, so clear and hollow were the notes. I burst through the knotted stalks of the ivy, and stooping like some poor travesty of Narcissus, with shaded face pierced down deep—deep into eyes not my own, but violet and unendurable and strange—eyes of the living water-sprite drawing my wits from me, stilling my heart, till I was very near plunging into that crystal ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... she's funking it," suddenly called out a dancing little sprite of a newspaper girl. She came up close to Bet as she spoke, and shook a dirty hand in her face, and gazed up at her with two mirthful, teasing, wicked black eyes. "Bet's funking it,—she's a mammy's girl,—she's tied to her ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... cried cheerily. 'I bring monsieur his coffee.' And her announcement was followed by a fragrance—the softly-sung response of the coffee-sprite. Her tray, with its pretty freight of silver and linen, primrose butter, and gently-browned pain-de-gruau, she set down on the table at my elbow; then she crossed the room and drew back the window-curtains, making the rings tinkle crisply on the metal rods, and letting in a gush of ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... that moan in the lotus-tree * Woke grief in thy heart and bred misery? Or doth memory of maiden in beauty deckt * Cause this doubt in thee, this despondency? O night, thou art longsome for love-sick sprite * Complaining of Love and its ecstacy: Thou makest him wakeful, who burns with fire * Of a love, like the live coal's ardency. The moon is witness my heart is held * By a moonlight brow of the brightest ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... where the sturgeon swims, though the watersprites plague him and toss his boat, and the fish and the leeches bunt and drag; but, suddenly, the sturgeon shoots from the water, and ere the arch of mist that he tracks through the air has vanished, the sprite has caught a drop of the spray in a tiny blossom, and in this he washes clean ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... Aswatthaman more than marked the birds, When, lo! there fell out of the velvet night, Silent and terrible, an eagle-owl, With wide, soft, deadly, dusky wings, and eyes Flame-coloured, and long claws, and dreadful beak; Like a winged sprite, or great Garood himself; Offspring of Bharata! it lighted there Upon the banian's bough; hooted, but low, The fury smothering in its throat;—then fell With murderous beak and claws upon those crows, Rending the wings from this, the legs from that, From ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... bounced into the barouche with a vigor that made it rock quite unromantically; for she is not frail, she is not a butterfly, as you perceived. I recognized her from a description I had received from my cousin the bride. She was accompanied by that meagre, smart little sprite of a French girl, whom Madam always takes with her,—to talk French with, and to be waited upon by her, she says; but rather, I believe, by way of a contrast to set off her own brilliant complexion and imperial proportions. It is Juno and Arachne. The divine orbs of the goddess turned haughtily ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... "What sprite are you?" answered Much, reining in his steed sharply. "Why! 'tis the gipsy lad, as I live; with his face nicely washed...!" He had recognized Robin by his clothes. "Money, forsooth! Do you know that I have not so much as ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... as I throw the shutter wide, And look out at the dawn, The garden paths are neatly dried, And all the clouds are gone. But hark, where in the morning light Yon chestnut lifts its dome, I hear the last, last Weather Sprite Dragging ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Behold Kauna, that sprite of windy Ka-u, Whose bosom is slapped by the Moa'e-ku, And that eye-smiting wind Unulau— Women by hundreds filch the bloom 5 Of Paia, hunt fruit of the hala, a-ha! That one was the gallant, at evening, This one the hero of love, in ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... had been a signal, another girl appeared suddenly from the back of the woodshed. She was as dark as Bessie was fair, a mischievous, black-eyed girl, who danced like a sprite as she approached Bessie. Her brown legs were bare, her dress was even more worn and far dingier than Bessie's, which was clean and neat. She was smiling as Bessie ...
— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart
... this litle queane, that hath at me such spite, Saue you from hir maister, it is a very sprite. ...
— Roister Doister - Written, probably also represented, before 1553. Carefully - edited from the unique copy, now at Eton College • Nicholas Udall
... we have seen, the telephone as Bell invented it, was merely a brilliant beginning in the development of the art of telephony. It was an elfin birth—an elusive and delicate sprite that had to be nurtured into maturity. It was like a soul, for which a body had to be created; and no one knew how to make such a body. Had it been born in some less energetic country, it might ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... foul fiend hath no more power to stand: He down, as I can quickly get him laid, I bless myself, and like a holy maid, Turn on my right side, where I sleep all night Without more dreams or troubling of the sprite. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... better for his living in it; and because no one can watch the black-capped sprite without catching, for a moment at least, a message of cheer and courage and service, does he not name himself ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... wide banquet spreads for thee, O daintiest reveller of the joyous earth! One drop of honey gives satiety; A second draught would drug thee past all mirth. Thy feast no orgy shows; Thy calm eyes never close, Thou soberest sprite to ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... flowing, cadent note And bear it ever safe within Our rapturous hearts, which gladly leap Whene'er thy name is called! Deep in our souls the quenchless fire Of love full brightly burns upon The sacred altar, set apart For sprite commune and sacrifice; Whose high-priest tends with loving care, And unto thee sweet incense burns. Our tongues most gladly sing thy praise, And from it ne'er shall cease—till all The land ...
— The Sylvan Cabin - A Centenary Ode on the Birth of Lincoln and Other Verse • Edward Smyth Jones
... one of these sportive zephyrs. "De you call that a gust of wind? I declare it was a viewless sprite, or a party of snow elves, playing their ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... freak was always short: sometimes when driven a little hard in the war of words—for her tongue did ample justice to the pith, the point, the delicacy of her native French, in which language she always attacked me—I used to turn upon her with my old decision, and arrest bodily the sprite that teased me. Vain idea! no sooner had I grasped hand or arm than the elf was gone; the provocative smile quenched in the expressive brown eyes, and a ray of gentle homage shone under the lids in its place. I ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... quickness of wit and intelligence suggested occasionally a "spirit of air and fire" rather than one of earth; that he was abundantly given to all kinds of quirk and laughter; and that there was no jest (saving the unkind) he would not make and relish. The late Mr. J. A. Symonds always called him Sprite; qualifying the name, however, by the epithets "most fantastic, but most human." To me the essential humanity was always the thing most apparent. In a fire well nourished of seasoned ship-timber, the flames glance fantastically and of many ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Muse And her divine employment, The blameless Muse who trains her sons For hope and calm enjoyment; Albeit sickness lingering yet Has o'er their pillow brooded, And care waylays their steps—a sprite Not ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... meek, saintly glory Steeps summit and wold; There whippoorwills plain in the solitudes hoary With lone cries that wander Now hither, now yonder, Like souls doomed of old 60 To a mild purgatory; But through noonlight and moonlight The little fount tinkles Its silver saints'-bells, That no sprite ill-boding May make his abode ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... the walking ghosts of the silent dead. I heard the voice of the Water-Fairy;[28] I saw her form in the moon-lit mist, As she sat on a stone with her burden weary, By the foaming eddies of amethyst. And robed in her mantle of mist the sprite Her low wail poured on the silent night. Then the spirit spake, and the floods were still— They hushed and listened to what she said, And hushed was the plaint of the whippowil In the silver-birches above her head: 'Wiwaste, the prairies are green and fair When the robin sings and the whippowil; ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... Dwarf had three servants whom he employed to attend to his most important business. These were a Gryphoness, a Water Sprite, and an Absolute Fool. This last one was very valuable; for there were some things he would do which no one else would think of attempting. The Dwarf called to him the Gryphoness, the oldest and most discreet of the three, and told her of the ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... a restless, wayward sprite, So young, so tender, and so fair, I dare not trust thee from my sight, Nor let thee breathe the common air! Home to my heart, then, quickly flee, It is the only place ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... climbed trees to peep into squirrel-holes and birds'-nests; they chased bees and butterflies to ask for news of the elves; they waded in the brook, hoping to catch a water-sprite; they ran after thistle-down, fancying a fairy might be astride; they searched the flowers and ferns, questioned sun and wind, listened to robin and thrush; but no one could tell them any thing of the little people, though all had gay and charming bits of news about themselves. And Daisy thought ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... to part; yet asks my sprite, Part we to meet? Ah! is it so? Mans fancy-made Omniscience knows, who made Omniscience ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... Amy," he would say, laughing, "of some reckless sprite from the kingdom of misrule, who had flown into the scene, determined to make all the trouble she could. It was very chivalrous of you, to be sure, and I ought to be very grateful—but I must own that I felt ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... of kindness was creeping over him. He didn't want to be at enmity with anybody, least of all with this dainty sprite of a woman with the cornflower eyes and the flaxen hair. He no longer wondered that three men in succession, weary of the mud of fighting, had come to her for rest. He could even comprehend Adair's treachery, if it had gone so far as treachery. Adair had found his wife fretful—she had always ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... the hill, Captain," interposed Peter Browne hastily, and as he carefully aided the Widow Ford to climb the steep ascent some sprite might have whispered in his ear that this was his own future wife. That night was born Martha Ford, who should from similarity of history have married Peregrine White, but who instead wedded ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... science, the bland Attic skies True-mirrored by an English well;—no stream Whose heaven-belying surface makes the stars Reel, with its restless idiosyncrasy; But well unstirred, save when at times it takes Tribute of lover's eyelids, and at times Bubbles with laughter of some sprite below. ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... ghastly noon, Pauses above the death-still wood—the moon; The night-sprite, sighing, through the dim air stirs; The clouds descend in rain; Mourning, the wan stars wane, Flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres! Haggard as spectres—vision-like and dumb, Dark with the pomp of Death, and moving slow, Towards that sad lair the pale Procession come Where the Grave ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... he now knew not what to do, but stood uncertain, devouring the beauty of the sprite in the water as greedily as he might with eyes that were not audacious, for in truth he had ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... little sprite Ariel had nothing mischievous in his nature, except that he took rather too much pleasure in tormenting an ugly monster called Caliban, for he owed him a grudge because he was the son of his old enemy Sycorax. This Caliban, Prospero found in ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... thy home, Airy sprite, I bid thee come! Born of roses, fed on dew, Charms and potions canst thou brew? Bring me here, with elfin speed, The fragrant philter which I need. Make it sweet and swift and strong, Spirit, ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott |
