"Wassail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a palmer within the old baronial banqueting hall of Percy Du Bois. The wassail had not yet begun, and there was a pause in the feast. All eyes were bent upon the travel soiled pilgrim,—for he was telling a stirring tale of the martial deeds done in Palestine. The valiant Percy bent forward his anxious visage,—seamed ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... which food was set on and they ate; and the doctors arose and withdrew; but Al-Maamun forbade the stranger to depart with them and, calling him to himself, treated him with especial-favour and promised him honour and profit. Thereupon they made ready the seance of wassail; the fair-faced cup-companions came and the pure wine[FN252] went round amongst them, till the cup came to the stranger, who rose to his feet and spake thus, "If the Commander of the Faithful permit me, I will say one word." Answered the Caliph, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... of Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia meekly displaying the contents of her apron before her lord, the Landgrave—that heavy, sporadic type of whiskered ass whose only mission in life seems to be that of pulling the stars and all else down about his wassail-soaked head and ears through sheer avoirdupois and stupidity. Padre Antonio experienced a sudden thrill as he gazed at the picture. Clearly, it was the hand of God directing him. So did Saint Elizabeth deliberately deny the truth, and yet the ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... end there was the raised dais, on which in ancient times the host and his guests used to spread their table, while a descent of a couple of steps led to the lower part of the hall, where the vassals and retainers held wassail. The floor was uncovered by any sort of carpet, but a layer of rushes had been scattered over it by my direction. In the whole room there was nothing to remind one of the nineteenth century; except, indeed, my own solid ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... Knight," he answered; "but I will wake them from their wassail." Springing from the dais lightly as a cat, he ran down the hall crying, "Air is what they need. Air!" Now coming to the door, he threw it wide open, and drawing a silver whistle from his robe, blew it long and loud. "What," ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... man's club is a place designed to brighten our darkened lives, and send us home, when we're halfway blind, in humor to beat our wives. So hey for the wicker demi-john and the free-lunch brand of grub! We'll wassail hold till the break of dawn, we friends of the poor man's club! It's here we barter our bits of news in our sweat stained hand-me-downs; it's here we swallow the children's shoes and the housewives hats and gowns. It's here we mortgage the house and lot, the ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... him hospitable welcome. Their brother freeman has been cursing their stars and his own, ever since the receipt of solemn notification to this effect." But very grateful, when it came, was the enthusiasm of the greeting, and welcome the gift of the silver wassail-bowl which followed the reading of the Carol. "I had no opportunity of asking any one's advice in Edinburgh," he wrote on his return. "The crowd was too enormous, and the excitement in it much too great. But my determination is all but taken. I must do something, or I shall wear my heart ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... had failed. The two musty musketeers were awaiting him hard by the ruined chateau—that is to say, on a park bench with rickety cast-iron legs. His honor was at stake. He had engaged to storm the castle single-handed and bring back the treasure that was to furnish them wassail and solace. And all that stood between him and the coveted dollar was his wife, once a little girl whom he could—aha!—why not again? Once with soft words he could, as they say, twist her around his little finger. Why not again? Not for years had he tried ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... They found the tents filled with food, liquors of all kinds and a great quantity of precious commodities, and forgetting they were in the presence of an enemy, they plunged into the wildest excesses of festivity and wassail. ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... Remsen's peace of mind there came a diversion in the guise of a reunion of the Gentle Riders of the city. There were not many of them—perhaps a score—and there was wassail and things to eat, and speeches and the Spaniard was bearded again in recapitulation. And when daylight threatened them the survivors prepared to depart. But some remained upon the battlefield. One of these was Trooper O'Roon, who was not seasoned to potent liquids. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... viands the larders presented; Such wondrous confections the bakers invented: Such pasties and cates of eccentric design; Such sparkling decanters of rarest old wine; And ready at hand was the great wassail-bowl, And the jolly old boar's head, with lemon, so droll. The nook for musicians was carefully planned, And carols and glees would ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... for vast conquests! "These rugged tribes, devoted to their chiefs, led by Cyrus from their herds and hunting-grounds to startle the pampered Lydians with their spare diet and clothing of skins; living on what they could get, strangers to wine and wassail, schooled in manly exercises, cleanly even to superstition, loyal to age and filial duties; with a manly pride of personal independence that held a debt the next worst thing to a lie; their fondness for social graces, their feudal dignities, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... A fat fed beeve, and a two-shear sheep, With a firkin of ale that a monk in his sleep May hear to hum, when it feels the broach, And wake up and swig, without reproach!— And the nuns of the Fosse—for wassail-bread— Let them have wheat, both white and red; And a runlet of mead, with a jug of the wine Which the merchant-man vowed he brought from the Rhine; And bid Hugh say that their bells must ring A peal loud and long, While we chaunt heart-song, For the birth of ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... the day's wassail, most of the men went below at an early hour, leaving the deck to the steward and two of the men remaining on duty; the mate, with Baltimore and the Dane, engaging to relieve them at midnight. At that hour, the ship—now standing off shore, under ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... of Merrymount—unsanctified in the eyes of their Puritan neighbors, for were they not Episcopals, who had pancakes at Shrovetide and wassail at Christmas?—were dancing about their May-pole one summer evening, for they tried to make it May throughout the year. Some were masked like animals, and all were tricked with flowers and ribbons. Within their circle, ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... that I was doomed that day to give up the bulk of my store of hard-wrung coin to the relief of this Ada Lowery. But I swore to myself that Tripp's whiskey dollar would not be forthcoming. He might play knight-errant at my expense, but he would indulge in no wassail afterward, commemorating my weakness and gullibility. In a kind of chilly anger I put on my ...
— Options • O. Henry
... to whom he cannot show himself. She has built a doorless, windowless wall between them, and sees the husband of her youth no more. Outside her heart—that is the night in which he wanders, while the palace-windows are flaring, and the low wind throbs to the wassail shouts: within, his murderer sits by the wife of his bosom, and in the orchard the spilt poison is yet gnawing at the roots of ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... said young Chitterlings, mildly. "Every moment is precious. Is this an hour to give to wine and wassail? Ha, we want action—action! We must strike the blow for freedom to-night—aye, this very night. The scow is already anchored in the mill-dam, freighted with provisions for a three months' voyage. I have a black flag in my pocket. Why, ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... must. My readers expect a robin, and they shall have it. And a wassail-bowl, and a turkey, ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... Haddon Hall should be seen the same day if possible; so that you may carry the impressions of the one fresh and active into the other. They are the two most representative buildings in the kingdom. Haddon is old English feudalism edificed. It represents the rough grandeur, hospitality, wassail and rude romance of the English nobility five hundred years ago. It was all in its glory about the time when Thomas-a-Becket the Magnificent used to entertain great companies of belted knights of the realm in a manner that exceeded regal munificence in those days,—even ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... some parts they cook dates; others cook oranges, making them into dumplings and also stewing them. These are favourite sweets. To go out singing from door to door at Christmas is called wassailing—a relic of the ancient time when wassail was a common word. When I was a boy, among other out-of-the-way pursuits, I took an interest in astrology. The principal work on astrology, from which all the others have been more or less derived, is Ptolemy's 'Tetrabiblos,' and there, pointing out the mysterious influence ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... gossip,—solitary, shady, cool, and quiet,—surely I can rest here. Forked tongues of scandal can not penetrate through those rock-ribbed hills yonder, nor dart across that defying sea; and neither wail nor wassail of men or women can disturb me more. But how do I know that it will not prove a mocking cheat like Baiae and Maggiore, or Copais and Cromarty? I have fled in disgust and ennui from far lovelier spots than this, and what right have I to suppose that contentment ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... velveteen coat, and a different-colored flowing tie for every day in the week. His habits were in complete conformity with his philosophy of extremes. He was apt to tell me when he had been sitting up all night, whether in study or what he called wassail; but I could always guess the fact from his appearance. His method of work was equally irregular, and he lived from hand to mouth. He would be idle as a forced peach on a hot-house wall (to use a simile of his own) for weeks at a time; and yet when he was seized with a desire to work, ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... having dispersed in a state like the afflatus of laughing-gas, the poet and a privileged clique proceeded to the house of the Baptist elder, to prolong the night with metaphysical wassail. From the froth of poetry, they rose to a contemplation of the old classics; Homer, Euripides, Sophocles, Virgil, rising grandly from their dust, ensphered in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... foes; but there is good stock in them,—brain and brawn, and brain and brawn will yet carry the day over court and crown, in the name of the right, which shall overpower all things. We clamber down into arched passages, choked with debris, over floors tangled with briers, and join in the wild wassail of the bold outlaw, fired by his victorious career. We clamber up the rugged sides and wind around to the headland. Brilliant in the "morning-shine," exultant in the pride and pomp of splendid preparation, ardent for conquest and glory, Abercrombie ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... in this way, and the sounds of mirth and wassail had long been strangers to the castle, when Sir Robert requested his lady, to her great astonishment, to invite some twenty or thirty of their friends to spend the Christmas, which was fast approaching, at the castle. Lady Ardagh gladly complied, ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... the shadows of the bordering oaks and beeches and encephalopathed Easy Money to keep to the center of the lane. And, as "before," no one was abroad. Probably King Pelles' wassail was already in progress, or, if not, the goodly knights and gentlewomen were still at evensong. In any event, he reached the lane that led to the castle of ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... not some pallid face Look in upon the banquet, calling up Dread shapes of battles in the wassail cup, And trouble ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... launched the boats for the boardin' parties," broke in Jean Lafitte, standing on one leg in his excitement; "—an' so made her a prize. An' then we made 'em walk the plank amid scenes of wassail—all but ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... which he termed impecuniosity, and against which he claimed a right to call for relief from the healthier purses of his friends. He was a scribbler for the newspapers, and latterly a dramatic critic, which had probably gained him an invitation to the dinner and reading. The wine and wassail, however, befogged his senses. Scarce had the author got into the second act of his play, when Hiffernan began to nod, and at length snored outright. Bickerstaff was embarrassed, but continued to read in ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... Well! He is the true Heautontimorumenos, the self-punisher, with a jug of toast-and-water for his Christmas wassail. So far his folly is merely pitiable, but his intolerance makes it offensive. He cannot enjoy his own tipple unless he can deprive me of mine. A fox that has lost his tail. There is no tyrant like a thoroughpaced reformer. I ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... and low, and therefore announces, in a line of letters, that his establishment is the Pig and Whistle, just as his remote predecessor thought it was low, or slow, or old-fashioned to dedicate his ale-shop to Pigen Wassail or Hail to the Virgin, and so changed it to a more genteel and secular form. In the public place were rows of booths arranged in streets forming imperium in imperio, a town within a town. There was of course the traditional gilt gingerbread, ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... back into shape, and went inside it for a peg of something and a consultation. Next evening William called on the Heavies' commander and decoyed him up to dine. We regaled him with wassail and gramophone and explained the situation to him. The Lord of the Heavies, a charming fellow, nearly burst into tears when he heard of the ill he had unwittingly done us, and was led home by William at 1.30 A.M., swearing to withdraw his infernal machines, or beat them ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various
... Norseman calls, the anchor falls, The mariners hurry a-strand: They wassail with fore-drunken skals Where prophet wild grapes stand; They lift the Leifsbooth's hasty walls They stride ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... wassail-bout[7] Wore the long Winter out; Often our midnight shout Set the cocks crowing, As we the Berserk's[8] tale Measured in cups of ale, Draining the oaken pail, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... Harold," answered Hilda, quickly turning; "such was ever the ceremony due to Saxon king, when he slept in a subject's house, ere our kinsmen the Danes introduced that unroyal wassail, which left subject and king unable to hold or to quaff cup, when the board ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Mounted Police hangin' t' m' tail till A scuttled the Boundary. Good days—rip roaring days for the makin' of strong men! We were none o' y'r cold blooded reptile calculatin' kind! May we fight valiant for God now as we wrestled for the Devil then! Oh, to be young again an' not spill life in wassail! to give the blows for right instead of wrong! Man, what a view y' have here—what a view! Minds me of the days A was bridge ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... of Hearne in his Search for the Coppermine River and Northwest Passage—Hilarious Life of Wassail led by Governor Norton—The Massacre of the Eskimo by Hearne's Indians North of the Arctic Circle—Discovery of the Athabasca Country—Hearne becomes Resident Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, but is captured by the French—Death of Norton ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... 'What I! 'tis thirteen years ago since I have done such a thing!'" "By Allah," quoth the Shaykh (and indeed he was abashed), "no sin of mine this, she forced me to do it." Nur al-Din laughed and they sat down again to wine and wassail, but the damsel turned to her master and said in a whisper, "O my lord, drink and do not press him, that I may show thee some sport with him." Then she began to fill her master's cup and he hers and so they did time after time, till at last Shaykh Ibrahim looked at them and said, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... hind, With some strange tale bewitch'd my mind, Of forayers who, with headlong force, Down from that strength had spurr'd their horse, Their southern rapine to renew, Far in the distant Cheviots blue, And home returning, fill'd the hall With revel, wassail-rout, and brawl. Methought that still with trump and clang The gateway's broken arches rang; Methought grim features, seam'd with scars, Glared through the windows' rusty bars; And ever, by the winter hearth, Old tales I heard of woe or mirth, Of lovers' slights, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... like post-horses from some mail-coach by a relay; they let their spirits gallop away into the wilds of argument to which no one listened, began to tell stories which had no auditors, and repeatedly asked questions to which no answer was made. Only the loud voice of wassail could be heard, a voice made up of a hundred confused clamors, which rose and grew like a crescendo of Rossini's. Insidious toasts, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... consideration of profit and loss, that in vain they spread a free sail—the tide of gayety refuses to float their barks from the shoal beside which they are moored. In their seasons of gayety the French are philosophers, for while they imbibe the mirth they discard the wassail, and wine instead of being the body of their feasts, as with other nations, it is but the spice used to add a flavor to the whole. I know not that these remarks of mine have aught to do with my story, but I throw ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... "Wissal, wassail through the town, If you've got any apples, throw them down. Up with the stocking, and down with the shoe, If you've got no apples, money will do. The jug is white, and the ale is brown, This is the best ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various
... thou wouldst make profit of thy time, begin by bringing hither for my supper good ale and wine, with sugar and spices; and I will brew thee such a horn as thou hast ne'er thought on before. And thou for each good turn shalt drink a wassail to thy buxom wench and shalt have money for ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... being rogues or proctors". It furnished the theme to the Christmas cycle of stories, The Seven Poor Travellers, the narrator, who treats the waifs and strays harboured one Christmas eve at the Charity to roast turkey, plum pudding, and "wassail", bringing up the number to seven, "being", as he says, "a traveller myself, though an idle one, and being withal as poor as I hope ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... still customary in many parts of England to hand round the wassail, or health-bowl, on New-Year's Eve. The custom is supposed to be of Saxon origin, and to be derived from one of the observances of the Feast of Yule. The tune of this song is given in Popular Music. It is a universal favourite in Gloucestershire, particularly ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... Shakespeare, the peg tankard, a species of wassail or wish-health bowl, was still in use. Introduced to restrain intemperance, it became a cause of it, as every drinker was obliged to drink down to the peg. We get our expression of taking a man "a peg lower," or taking him "down a peg," ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... said, and laid a hand on the other's shoulder, "before you get busy on the wassail-bowl, my lad, I should like to remind you that the boat's crew will commence training for the Regatta at 7 A.M. to-morrow. No fatheads ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... more go over the old story, and tell of the songs of the gleemen, the music of the harpers, of wine and wassail, of healths and acclaims, which made the roof, the oaken roof, ring again and again? Nay, we have tired the reader's patience with scenes of ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... FOLLIOTT. No wassail-bowl for me. Give me an unsophisticated bowl of punch, which belongs to that blissful middle period, after the Jacquerie was down, and before the march of mind was up. But, see, who is floundering in ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... date Mr. Dickens gave a reading of his Christmas Carol in the Music Hall, before the members and subscribers of the Philosophical Institution. At the conclusion of the reading the Lord Provost of Edinburgh presented him with a massive silver wassail cup. Mr. Dickens ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... stirring," Francisco cried, chill, sleepy, pale. No bat through night-wastes wheeling, whirring; No trumpet's shrill, no rocket's roar. And here all seems as calm and quiet As on the heights of Elsinore,— Save for far sounds of wassail riot. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 31, 1892 • Various
... never flings her lovers from her arms— "Not Death, for she is still a fruitful wife, "Her spouse the Dead, and their cold marriage yields "A million children, born of mould'ring flesh— "So Death and Flesh live on—immortal they! "I mean the blank-ey'd queen whose wassail bowl "Is brimm'd from Lethe, and whose porch is red "With poppies, as it waits the panting soul— "She, she alone is great! No scepter'd slave "Bowing to blind creative giants, she; "No forces seize her in their strong, mad hands, "Nor say, "'Do this—be that!'" Were there a God, ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... togged themselves out in all the gay regimentals of the Russian officers. Salutes of triumph were fired from the cannon. A Te Deum was sung. Feast and mad wassail filled both day and night till the harbor cleared. Even the Cossacks caught the madcap spirit of the escapade, and helped to load ammunition on the St. Peter and Paul. Nor were old wrongs forgiven. Ismyloff was bundled on the vessel in irons. The chancellor's secretary ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... with revelry, The beakers red with wassail; And music's grandest symphony Rung thro' the ancient castle; And she, the brightest of the throng, With wedding-veil and roses, Seemed like the beauty of a song Between ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... Willies came into possession of what was to them a veritable wassail bowl, in the form of a small barrel, containing exactly six quarts of fine ale. One of the men possessed a five-pint jug and another a three-pint jug, and the problem for them was to divide the liquor equally amongst them without waste. Of course, they are not to use any other vessels or measures. ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... resting-places, thirty of the thanes, and thence he rushed fain of his fell spoil, faring homeward, laden with slaughter, his lair to seek. Then at the dawning, as day was breaking, the might of Grendel to men was known; then after wassail was wail uplifted, loud moan in the morn. The mighty chief, atheling excellent, unblithe sat, labored in woe for the loss of his thanes, when once had been traced the trail of the fiend, spirit accurst: too cruel that sorrow, too long, too loathsome. Not late the respite; with night ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... in that young fellow's looks, Christie, and we want men of limbs and sinews so compacted—those thou hast brought to me of late are the mere refuse of mankind, wretches scarce worth the arrow that ends them: this youngster is limbed like Saint George. Ply him with wine and wassail—let the wenches weave their meshes about him like spiders—thou understandest?" Christie gave a sagacious nod of intelligence, and fell back to a respectful distance from his master.—"And thou, old man," said the Baron, turning to the elder ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... Rome, and England no doubt was greatly benefited thereby; but, alas! "money matters became scarce," and the poor Briton was forced to associate with the delirium tremens and massive digestion of the Saxon, who floated in a vast ocean of lard and wassail during his waking hours and slept with the cunning little piglets at night. His earthen floors were carpeted with straw and frescoed ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... consisted only of the little island in the Seine, and kings and feudal lords, with wine and wassail were reveling in the saloons of China, a hunting-seat was reared in the the dense forest which spread itself along the banks of the river. As the city extended, and the forest disappeared, the hunting-seat was enlarged, ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... said the Templar, filling his goblet, "drink wassail to the fair Rowena; for since her namesake introduced the word into England, has never been one more worthy of such a tribute. By my faith, I could pardon the unhappy Vortigern, had he half the cause that we now witness, for making shipwreck of his honour ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... party produced an image of the Virgin and Child, and another offered comfits in a box; a third presented the wassail-cup, into which Raby immediately poured some silver, and Coventry followed his example. Grace fumbled for her purse, and, when she had found it, began to fumble in ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... merchants from Tiberias town: we arrived at Baghdad ten days ago; and, alighting at the merchants' caravanserai, we sold all our merchandise. Now a certain trader invited us to an entertainment this night; so we went to his house and he set food before us and we ate: then we sat at wine and wassail with him for an hour or so when he gave us leave to depart; and we went out from him in the shadow of the night and, being strangers, we could not find our way back to our Khan. So haply of your kindness ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... of Wakefield, and even Mr. Pickwick himself, had never been more jovial at a Christmas party than were Miss Abingdon's guests. A silver bowl in the middle of the table suggested punch; Canon Wrottesley must brew a wassail bowl. A footman was sent for this thing and that, for lemons and boiling water—the water must boil, remember? And too much sugar would spoil the whole thing. The vicar stirred the ingredients with an air, and poured from time to time a ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... lies heavy, and its gems Stud the luxuriant, grassy stems. The happy night with wassail rings; So feasted here the ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... "Many a wassail-bout Wore the long Winter out; Often our midnight shout Set the cocks crowing, As we the Berserk's tale Measured in cups of ale, Draining the oaken ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... banqueting hall that you have never heard described. You know all about the feast of Ahasuerus, where a thousand lords sat. You know all about Belshazzar's carousal, where the blood of the murdered king spurted into the faces of the banqueters. You may know of the scene of riot and wassail, when there was set before Esopus one dish of food that cost $400,000. But I speak now of a different banqueting hall. Its roof is fretted with fire. Its floor is tesselated with fire. Its chalices are chased with fire. Its song is a song of fire. Its walls are buttresses of fire. Solomon ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... Carolsingers are still with us, but often instead of the old carols they sing very badly and irreverently modern hymns, though in Cambridgeshire you may still hear "God bless you, merry gentlemen," and the vessel-boxes (a corruption of wassail) are still carried round in Yorkshire. At Christmas Cornish folk eat giblet-pie, and Yorkshiremen enjoy furmenty; and mistletoe and the kissing-bush are still hung in the hall; and in some remote parts ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... oh, friends from west and east And other foreign parts, Come share the rapture of our feast, The love of loyal hearts; And in the wassail that suspends All matters burthensome, We'll drink a health to good old friends And good friends yet to come. Clink, clink, clink! To fellowship we drink! And from the bowl No genial soul In such an hour will shrink. Clink, clink, clink! Merrily let us drink! ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... blue; Two, three, treaclyness free; Three, four, gilding galore; Four, five, bogies alive; Five, six, spectres from Styx; Six, seven, angels from heaven; Seven, eight, big "extra plate"; Eight, nine, wassail and wine; Nine, ten, pencil and pen; Ten, eleven, commercial leaven; Eleven, twelve, "high-art" shelve; Thirteen, fourteen, pictures of sporting; Fifteen, sixteen, ghost-stories, fixt een; Seventeen, eighteen, advertisements great in; ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 19, 1891 • Various
... herculean constitution; but of course that sort of thing does more or less injury to a man's mind, however comparatively harmless the form of his dissipation may be. There are very few men whom John Saltram cannot drink under the table, and rise with a steady brain himself when the wassail is ended; yet I believe, in a general way, few men drink less than he does. At cards he is equally strong; a past-master in all games of skill; and the play is apt to be rather high at one or two of the clubs he belongs to. He has a wonderful power of self-restraint when he cares ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... addition to all the other excellences of Hamlet's speech concerning the wassail-music—so finely revealing the predominant idealism, the ratiocinative meditativeness, of his character—it has the advantage of giving nature and probability to the impassioned continuity of the speech instantly directed to the Ghost. The momentum had been given to his mental ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... her, Here we coom at oor toon-end, Weel bun' an' better shorn Blest be t' day that Christ was born, Guy Fawkes Day A Stick and a stake, Awd Grimey sits upon yon hill, Christmas I wish you a merry Kessenmas an' a happy New Year, Cleveland Christmas Song A Christmas Wassail Sheffield Mumming Song Charms, "Nominies," and Popular Rhymes Wilful weaste maks weasome want A rollin' stone gethers no moss Than awn a crawin' hen Nowt bud ill-luck 'll fester where Meeat maks The Miller's Thumb Miller, miller, mooter-poke Down i' yon lum we have a mill, Hob-Trush ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... jamboree [Slang], kantikoy^, nautch^, randy, squantum [U.S.], tear [Slang], Turnerfest^, yule log; fete, festival, gala, ridotto^; revels, revelry, reveling; carnival, brawl, saturnalia, high jinks; feast, banquet &c (food) 298; regale, symposium, wassail; carouse, carousal; jollification, junket, wake, Irish wake, picnic, fete champetre [Fr.], regatta, field day; treat. round of pleasures, dissipation, a short life and a merry one, racketing, holiday ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... were o'er, the knight Was holding wassail high, And the valiant men that followed ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... that now forgotten expression of good-will. Many a feud was reconciled in the clinking of glasses; just as many another was begun when the cup was drained too deeply. The first quarter of the last century saw the end of all the social glories of the wassail in this country, and though men drank as much fifty years later, all its poetry and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... his friends, vociferous though they were, and heated with anticipated triumphs, wine and wassail, heard the glorious din, learned its cause, and came reeling forth to embrace their puissant ally. Quitting as they did the fumes of buttocks and sirloins, gammons and hams, turkies and geese, wines, brandies, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... boar's head there and boy to carry it; next, being taken with a crockery-shop-sign, "The Little Bason" (which, by-the-bye, was a very large one), he purchases that also, thinking it will do for a wassail-bowl; likewise some holly; and an old butcher's-block to serve as the yule-log; not forgetting the last new Christmas book of sympathy and sentiment, "The Black Beetle on the Hob," a faery tale of a register-stove, by the author of the "Old Hearth Broom and the Kettle-Holder:"—With these ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner |
