"Maypole" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for our minds as our bodies, and 'tis as indecent to show all we think, as all we have. He has no idea of the manners of high life: his old Lord M. talks in the style of a country justice, and his virtuous young ladies romp like the wenches round a maypole. Such liberties as pass between Mr. Lovelace and his cousins, are not to be excused by the relation. I should have been much astonished if Lord Denbigh should have offered to kiss me; and I dare swear Lord Trentham never attempted ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... peace, and in hoisting a brand-new tricolored flag on the tree of liberty—a poplar planted, during the glorious days of July, close to the gate of the marquis's chateau, but which had long since withered into a dry and unsightly maypole. A number of bad characters mingle in the crowd, and the demonstration assumes a more turbulent and criminal aspect than its original promoters had contemplated. The outer gate of the chateau is forced, and stones are thrown, one ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... passementerie, reaching to her feet. A somewhat sumptuous garment this, given her by Sir Charles and Damaris last winter in Madrid. She fancied herself in it greatly, both for the sake of the dear donors, and because the cut of it was clever, disguising the over-narrowness of her maypole-like figure and giving her a becoming ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... first of May. The Easter bells had rung in the resurrection of spring a few days before, and she had come eager and joyful. She came, as the German ballad says, light-hearted as the young lover who is going to plant a maypole before the window of his betrothed. She painted the sky blue, the trees green, and all things in bright colors. She aroused the torpid sun, who was sleeping in his bed of mists, his head resting on the snow leaden clouds that served him as a pillow, and cried ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... things—it was the warrior who, through superiority of arms, enslaved his adversary. The Roman wanted matter; the Barbarian wanted man. Consequently, in the feudal ages, rents were almost nothing,—simply a hare, a partridge, a pie, a few pints of wine brought by a little girl, or a Maypole set up within the suzerain's reach. In return, the vassal or incumbent had to follow the seignior to battle (a thing which happened almost every day), and equip and feed himself at his own expense. ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... to-day; a more comely maid, As she danced in her muslin bowed with blue, Round a Hintock maypole never gayed." - "Aye, aye; I watched her this day, too, As it ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... tump[obs3]; knoll, hummock, hillock, barrow, mound, mole; steeps, bluff, cliff, craig[obs3], tor[obs3], peak, pike, clough[obs3]; escarpment, edge, ledge, brae; dizzy height. tower, pillar, column, obelisk, monument, steeple, spire, minaret, campanile, turret, dome, cupola;skyscraper. pole, pikestaff, maypole, flagstaff; top mast, topgallant mast. ceiling &c. (covering) 223. high water; high tide, flood tide, spring tide. altimetry &c. (angel) 244[obs3]; batophobia[obs3]. satellite, spy-in-the-sky. V. be high &c. adj.; tower, soar, command; hover, hover over, fly over;orbit, be in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... village of Chigwell Row. The village of Chigwell appears in the Domesday survey. The pleasant scenery of the neighbourhood, which attracts large numbers both of visitors and of residents from London, is described in Dickens's novel, Barnaby Rudge, and the King's Head Inn, Dickens's "Maypole," still stands. The old grammar school, founded by Samuel Harsnett, archbishop of York (d. 1631), whose fine memorial brass is in St Mary's church, has become one of the minor modern institutions of the English public school type. William Penn attended school ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... she caught sight of a crowd of boys and girls in a distant meadow, and ran to join them; calling to Birger and Karen to come, too. "They are gathering flowers to trim the Maypole for the midsummer festival," ...
— Gerda in Sweden • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... referred to, the King's Head, was the prototype of the Maypole in "Barnaby Rudge," and here we were delighted to stop for our belated luncheon. The inn fronts directly on the street and, like all English hostelries, its main rooms are given over to the bar, which at this time was crowded with Sunday loafers, the atmosphere reeking ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... introduced to your sisters—Sister Barbara I think you have met, as she sings in the choir. This is Sister Angela; this tall maypole is Sister Winifred, and this little being here is Sister Jerome, who was the youngest till you came. Aren't you pleased, Jerome, to have one younger than yourself?' The novices said, 'How do you do?' and looked ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... and revel used to be before this pavilion! —nought but pitching the bar, hurling the ball, wrestling, roaring of songs, clattering of wine pots, and quaffing of flagons among these burly yeomen, as if they were holding some country wake, with a Maypole in the midst of them ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... leave of your dads, And away to the Maypole hie, For ev'ry fair has a sweetheart there, And ...
— Old Ballads • Various
... Major. "Desborough said it was a Doctor Maypole, and that he was very like one in appearance. But you can't trust Desborough, you know; he never remembers names. I hope he may be as good a man ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... Brown also belong—these two last perhaps representing the highest point that Hawthorne reached in this direction. Then there are the little tales of New England history, which are scarcely less admirable, and of which The Grey Champion, The Maypole of Merry Mount, and the four beautiful Legends of the Province House, as they are called, are the most successful specimens. Lastly come the slender sketches of actual scenes and of the objects and manners about him, by means of which, more particularly, he endeavoured ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... Dolly Varden only laughed at him. To tell the truth, she was very fond of young Joe Willet, whose father kept the Maypole Inn, very near The Warren where her friend Emma Haredale lived. Joe was a good, brave fellow, and was head over ears in love with Dolly, but Dolly was a coquette, and never let him know how much she cared for him. Joe was not contented at home, for his father seemed ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... made that the wild outbreak of immorality which followed the restoration of Charles was partly due to the unnatural restrictions of the Puritan era. The criticism is just; but we must not forget the whole spirit of the movement. That the Puritan prohibited Maypole dancing and horse racing is of small consequence beside the fact that he fought for liberty and justice, that he overthrew despotism and made a man's life and property safe from the tyranny of rulers. A great river is not judged by the foam on its surface, and certain ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... had arrived at the stage known as au sec they passed the time in fighting. Eventually a deputation of masters came out, a conference was held, the "Blue Monday" feast was reinstituted, and the apprentices returned to Prague, carrying, in place of the imperial tree, a maypole—premature, no doubt, but it ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... or rondeaux, or terza rima. It is a mere chance, I assure you. Perhaps I may break out in rhymes presently. This evening we will have fireworks in the square, roast a whole ox, invite the neighbors, and dance about a maypole. You shall lead ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... upon the borders of Epping Forest, at a distance of about twelve miles from London—measuring from the Standard in Cornhill,' or rather from the spot on or near to which the Standard used to be in days of yore—a house of public entertainment called the Maypole; which fact was demonstrated to all such travellers as could neither read nor write (and at that time a vast number both of travellers and stay-at-homes were in this condition) by the emblem reared on the ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... rural and as pretty as when Dickens wrote over sixty years ago, one cannot fail to have a keen desire to see the place. "The King's Head" illustrated here is the inn Dickens had in his mind when describing the "Maypole" in Barnaby Rudge, and the whole of the plot of that work is so wrapped up in Chigwell and its immediate surroundings that one should not visit the village until one has read the story. One may see the panelled "great room" upstairs where Mr. Chester met Mr. Geoffrey Haredale. This room has a fine ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... area wide they took their stand, Where the tall maypole once o'er-looked the Strand, But now (so Anne and piety ordain) A church collects the ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... weary little boys and girls are still to be sometimes seen dragging round a perambulator with a doll on it bedecked with ribbons and a flower or two. That is all that is left in most parts of England of the Queen of the May and Jack-in-the-Green, though here and there a maypole survives and is resuscitated by enthusiasts about folk-dances. But in the days of "Good Queen Bess" merry England, it would seem, was lustier. The Puritan Stubbs, in his Anatomie of ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... cottage was May's sweet home With velvet moss for a floor, And a clambering vine in the gay sunshine, And a Maypole set by the door. And May herself, with a dimple and curl, Dressed in a flouncy gown, Was filling baskets—the prettiest girl In all ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner
... the severe Puritans of New Plymouth at this outbreak of licentiousness, was great indeed. In their eyes almost every amusement was looked upon as a sin; and the most innocent village dance round a maypole was regarded as nearly allied to the heathenish games in honor of the Goddess Flora. The conduct, therefore, of the disorderly settlers of Quincy filled them with shame and grief; and they felt humbled, as well as indignant, when they reflected on the discredit which ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... intolerable. Men were lying in prison here and there about merry England for no greater offence than preaching the gospel to a handful of God-fearing people. But that a Puritan tinker should moulder for a dozen years in a damp jail could count for little against the blessed fact of the Maypole reinstated in the Strand, and five play-houses in London performing ribald comedies, till but recently, when the ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... was degraded from the position of train-bearer to that of ordinary "swain." The "swains" were to be dressed in smocks and the "maidens" in print dresses, and the Maypole dance was to be performed round Evangeline Fish, who was to stand in queenly attire by the pole in the middle. All the ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... is that which the story opens with, in the quaint old kitchen of the Maypole; John Willett and his friends, genuinely comic creations all of them. Then we have Barnaby and his raven: the light-hearted idiot, as unconscious of guilt as of suffering, and happy with no sense but of the influences of nature; and the grave sly bird, with sufficient sense to make himself ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... of the way people were treated, a certain Lord of Laguene, spoken of in the old chronicles of the south, may be mentioned. Every year, this cunning baron assembled his tenants in the village square. A large maypole was planted, and on the top was attached a wren. The lord, pointing to the little bird, declared solemnly, that if any 'vilain' succeeded in piercing him with an arrow he should be exempt from that year's dues. The vilains shot away, but, ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... remember," went on Smith, "a great girl decked out like a maypole running across white sand in that Place of Bulls at Seville—but I forgot, you weren't there, ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... creditable emotion; "though unfortunately none of his productions have come down to us. But we have the highest contemporary testimony to his excellence in a copy of verses prefixed to his posthumous discourse entitled 'The New Snare of a Maypole, or Satan's own Trap for a Slippery Church.' The lines were written by his colleague, the Reverend Exaltation Brymm, and are certainly much to the purpose: I generally keep a copy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... one toe; stately Mrs. Primmins ran like a girl of fifteen to get her pins home before her competitor; Tommy Inches, four feet three, trotted away with Deacon Stone on his shoulder, while Mr. Steepleton and Miss Maypole hopped together like a pair of lively young ostriches, and Ned Amandine, the village beau, blew arrows through a pop-gun, like a modern Cupid in ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... re-opening of the theaters, and for fourteen years Dryden was known as a dramatic poet. There is little need to tell you anything about his plays, for you would not like to read them. During the reign of Puritanism in England the people had been forbidden even innocent pleasures. The Maypole dances had been banished, games and laughter were frowned upon. Now that these too stern laws had been taken away, people plunged madly into pleasure: laughter became coarse, merriment became riotous. Puritan England had lost the sense of where innocent pleasure ends and wickedness begins. In ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall |
