"Plaint" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sinful. Sorrow which sits with folded hands, like the sisters of Lazarus, and lets duties drift, that it may indulge in the luxury of unrestrained tears, is sinful. There is no tone of 'It is the Lord! let Him do what seemeth Him good,' in this passionate plaint; and so there is no soothing for the grief. The one consolation lies in submission. Submissive tears wash the heart clean; ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... a violin sang its very soul out upon the summer night, weaving its plaint into the soft, adagio rippling of a ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... plaint was as follows: "It ain't That I am to music a foe; For fiddle-strings bide in my own inside, And I ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... left he caught sight of a white tub into which, he recalled sadly, not even a Geoffrey could coax a glittering drop. Yes—he was at Baldpate Inn. He remembered—the climb with the dazed Quimby up the snowy road, the plaint of the lovelorn haberdasher, the vagaries of the professor with a penchant for blondes, the mysterious click of the door-latch on the floor above. And last of all—strange that it should have been last—a girl in blue corduroy somewhat ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... answered Colin; "the French regulars fight exceedingly well. Has not that been proved a thousand times on European soil? But the plaint of our General is that France sends him so few men, and that the Indians and Canadians are not of the same value, save in certain classes of warfare and in their native forests. The Governor is, however, so jealous for the honour of his Canadians, that he seeks in his dispatches to give ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... pin'd at his lot, Tho' new fences the lone Heath enclose: For, alas! the blest days are forgot, When poor Men had their Sheep and their Cows. Still had Labour been blest with Content, Still Competence happy had been, Nor Indigence utter'd a plaint, Had Avarice spar'd ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... than win the honour and glory of the campaign, which she knew beforehand would bring to her renown, the like of which no woman in the world's history has ever won. She would have gone back gladly, I truly believe, to her home in Domremy, and uttered no plaint, even though men ceased after the event to give her the praise and glory; for herself she never ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... river Dniester, and in it are many deep pools, dense reed-beds, clear shallows and little bays; its watery mirror gleams, filled with the melodious plaint of the swan, the proud wild goose glides swiftly over it; and snipe, red-throated ruffs, and other birds are to be found among the reeds and along the banks. The Cossacks rowed swiftly on in the narrow double-ruddered boats—rowed stoutly, ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... yard, or along the highway, and which seems to be expressive of a kind of unrest and vague longing,—the longing of the imprisoned Io for her lost identity. She sends her voice forth so that every god on Mount Olympus can hear her plaint. She makes this sound in the morning, especially in the spring, as she ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... and faint, Blends with the hollow sobbings of the sea; Like the sad music of a siren's plaint, But shriller than Leander's voice should be, Unless the wintry death had changed its tone,— Wherefore she thinks ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... air. Rang out a sweet bird's song, No feeble, weak, uncertain note, No plaint of grief or wrong, No "Miserere Domine," No "Dies Irea" sad, But "Gloria in Excelsis" rang, ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... that?" gasped Bobolink, proving that his plaint about his eyes closing up could hardly be based on ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... tresses, came Draupadi weak and faint, Stood within the Council Chamber, tearful made her piteous plaint: ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... priest-like father reads the sacred page, How Abram was the friend of God on high; Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire; Or other holy seers that tune the ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... that of the Marquis of Lorne when he motioned to the conductor of the orchestra. He was quite willing to allow these sons of submissive Frenchmen to feel a regret, perhaps even a flickering hope. The first on his feet, he listened to that fine plaint with respect, but he smothered its last echo ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... viciously, in answer to her sister's plaint, "we've given that young devil a bit of trouble. Perhaps they won't renew the contract, and anyway, it'll take a bit of proving that he did not sign that cancellation I ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... answered Jupiter; "I have heard thy plaint, and have come hither to show thee how greatly thou dost wrong me. Hark! I, who am sovereign lord of this world, promise to grant in full the first three wishes which it will please thee to utter, ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... grievances; among them this,—that writers of repute occasionally lend their names and pens to obscure or unsuccessful papers for a consideration, without asking how the usual staff of the paper is paid. These, indeed, are delicate inquiries. Part of the plaint was expressed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 31, 1892 • Various
... prose, avoid words and phrases that are merely poetical: such as, morn, eve, plaint, corse, weal, drear, amid, oft, steepy;—"what ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... And even more." Shaking his finger, the professor recited oracularly, "'Oh, wad some pow'r the giftie gie us to see oursel's as ithers see us.' Van Manderpootz is that power, Dixon. Through my attitudinizor, one may at last adopt the viewpoint of another. The poet's plaint of more than two centuries ago is answered ...
— The Point of View • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... would only usurp one more of what have hitherto been almost exclusively man's rights—the profession of architecture—she would in truth become the architect, not only of her own fortune, but of the fortunes of a suffering sisterhood, whose great plaint is, "So many things and no place to put them!" For who ever knew a mere man, architect and artist of the beautiful though he were, who had even the beginning of a realization of the absolute necessity for ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... Farewell, dear Brother of the Pen, Maker of sunshine for the minds of men, Lord of bright cheer and master of our hearts— What plaint is fit when such a friend departs? Not with mere ceremonial words of woe Come we to mourn—you would not have it so; But with our memories stored with joyous fun, Your constant largesse till your life was done, With quips, that flashed through frequent twists and bends, Caught from ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... in his seat as one who has made up his mind. "Let the case of the summoner be laid before me," said he. "Justice shall be done, and the offender shall be punished, be he noble or simple. Let the plaint be brought ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... pitiful whine suggestive of a dog's song on a moonlight night, but this plaint was drowned in the roars of ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... observe it's no easy thing Making the journey to Bumpville, So I think, on the whole, it were prudent to bring An end to this ride to Bumpville; For, though she has uttered no protest or plaint, The calico mare must be blowing and faint— What's more to the point, I'm blowed if I ain't! So play ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... no song, no variations on well-known airs; it was some marvellous reverie; a frameless picture, a landscape without horizon. A plaint, in a voice rather playful over something serious that is long past, and that can never come back again, avowed to no one by word of mouth, only handed down from generation to generation on the resounding strings—the song of the beggar who ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... lorn bird-voices of an unseen land- No hue of forest, gleam of ocean sand- Rise in a ceaseless plaint of raucous din, On northern tides the bergs ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... the spring-time thereafter oft-times did Tyri make plaint to King Olaf, and cried bitterly thereover, because albeit had she such great possessions in Wendland yet had she none in this country, and that she should have such deemed she but seemly for a Queen; & thinking that by fair words would ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... the feeling of one who looks on crumbling walls that were once the abode of human ambition; "The Seafarer," a chantey of the deep, which ends with an allegory comparing life to a sea voyage; "The Wanderer," which is the plaint of one who has lost home, patron, ambition, and as the easiest way out of his difficulty turns eardstappa, an "earth-hitter" or tramp; "The Husband's Message," which is the oldest love song in our literature; and a few ballads and battle songs, such as "The Battle of Brunanburh" (familiar ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... the patches of flickering fire-light falling on their faces in strange play and revelation, there stole upon her ear a sweeter and distincter sound, the voice of Miss Agatha, as, leaning out upon the night, she sang a plaint that consorted with her melancholy mood, learned in her Northern home in happier hours, without a thought of the moment of misery ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... tombs uncouthly gape around, And rails and fallen stones bestrew the ground: In loosen'd garb derang'd, with scatter'd hair, His bosom open to the nightly air, Lone, o'er a new heap'd grave poor Basil bent, And to himself began his simple plaint. ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... the river, the crickets chirped under the trees in the cemetery. The bells began to ring: first the highest of them, alone, like a plaintive bird, challenging the sky: then the second, a third lower, joined in its plaint: at last came the, deepest, on the fifth, and seemed to answer them. The three voices were merged in each other. At the bottom of the towers there was a buzzing, as of a gigantic hive of bees. The air and the boy's heart ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... help us in our need !" she replied; "how should I tell?— unless we were to make our plaint to the Regent." ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... I hear zour plaint; Sair, sair I rew the deid, That eir this cursed hand of mine Had gard his body bleid. Dry up zour tears, my winsome dame, Ze neir can heal the wound; Ze see his head upon the speir, His heart's blude on ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... ought not here to kiss his feet or to say, 'Thou art my gracious lord,' but as the angel in Zechariah 3, 2 said to Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan." (475.) Hence his Preface also concludes with the plaint and prayer: "O Lord Jesus Christ, do Thou Thyself convoke a council, and deliver Thy servants by Thy glorious advent! The Pope and his adherents are done for, they will have none of Thee. Do Thou, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... feeble plaint, quickly silenced by a thunder crash. "If we were only home with mama," he mourned, ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... light athwart the net of stars told thee that the angels were cutting their way down through the darkness, and into the spheres of men, and that all heaven was in a tumult of expectation, whilst in yonder city men slept, as they always sleep unconscious when God is near. And then, when the feeble plaint broke from Mary's lips, I cannot go further, and the gentle beast turned aside into the rocks and whins, and called to his companions of the stable, and the meek-eyed ox looked calmly at the intruders, and there—there—dear God! ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... Clasping him, and his forehead and his neck Kissing affectionate; then came, herself, As golden Venus or Diana fair, Forth from her chamber to her son's embrace, The chaste Penelope; with tears she threw Her arms around him, his bright-beaming eyes And forehead kiss'd, and with a murmur'd plaint Maternal, in wing'd accents thus began. 50 Thou hast return'd, light of my eyes! my son! My lov'd Telemachus! I had no hope To see thee more when once thou hadst embark'd For Pylus, privily, and with no consent From me obtain'd, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... high register she claims a place. Retiring, and unknown or but to few, Her latter days were hid from public view; But I have often witness'd, when alone— The prayer uplifted, and the sigh unknown. When no eye saw her, but with God shut in, She pour'd her plaint to Him, who saw, unseen; Then from the sacred word she succour drew, 'To hoary hairs I bear, I carry you.' This promise still her drooping spirit cheered, And shed its starlight when the night appeared. Bold, in her ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... of highly colored songsters would not have assuaged Gay's woe at that moment. Every effort at conciliation was met with the one plaint: "I want my Timfy! I want ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... blue vault overhead deepened and darkened. The hunter patrolled his beat, and hours were moments to him. He heard the low hum of the insects, the murmur of running water, the rustle of the wind. A coyote cut the keen air with high-keyed, staccato cry. The owls hooted, with dismal and weird plaint, one to the other. Then a wolf mourned. But these sounds only accentuated the loneliness and ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... Martinez, a young policeman who patrolled that part of the shore, spending the noon hours under the cafe shelter, his rifle across his knees, his eyes vaguely fixed on the horizon of the sea, and his ears filled with the running plaint of the tavernkeeper. A handsome chap Martinez was, an Andalusian from Huelva, slender and trim of person, natty as could be in the old service uniform which he sported with a truly martial swagger, twirling the corner of his blond mustache with an air that people ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... think themselves. Shepherds still piped, and maidens still listened to their piping. The old gods had not been discrowned and banished; and to fishers drawing their nets the coasts yet kept a something of the trace of amorous Polypheme, the rocks were peopled with memories of his plaint to Galatea. Inland, among the dim and thymy woods, bee-haunted and populous with dreams of dryad and oread, there were rumours of Pan; and dwellers under thatch—the goatherd mending his sandals, the hind carving his new staff, the girls who busked them for the vintaging—were conscious, as the ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... the other mighty men in Israel are like the ruder instruments of music—the trumpet of Sinai, with its one prolonged note. David is like his own harp of many chords, through which the breath of God murmured, drawing forth wailing and rejoicing, the clear ring of triumphant trust, the low plaint of penitence, the blended harmonies of all ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... any folly, even a dream-folly.... Except in that you cannot permanently banish it, the presence offers no positive resistance to your will: it accepts each caprice with obedience; it meets your every whim with angelic patience. It is never critical,—never makes plaint even by a look,—never proves irksome: yet you cannot ignore it, because of a certain queer power it possesses to make something stir and quiver in your heart,—like an old vague sweet regret,—something buried alive which will not die.... And so often does this happen ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... There was a childish plaint in her voice, and with a sob in his own breath he bent over her. For an instant her arms clung about his neck. He felt the sweet, thrilling touch of her warm lips, and then he drew himself back; and, with her "Good night, David" following him to the door, he went into ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... up, and glided to the floor, on his knees, had clasped his hands about her slender waist, and was looking earnestly and tenderly into her coy, half-averted face, as, half seriously and half in badinage, she made her plaint. ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... of her attendant's arms, clasp it frantically to her breast, and then go parading up and down the room weeping over the wondering little face, speedily bringing on a wailing accompaniment to her own mournful plaint. It was more than Miss ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... was incomparably beautiful. That sublime prayer ending in sobs, at the moment when the soul of the voices was about to overpass human limits, gave a wrench to Durtal's nerves, and made his heart beat. Then he wished to abstract himself, and cling especially to the meaning of that sorrowful plaint, in which the fallen being calls upon its God with groans and lamentations. Those cries of the third verse came back to him, wherein calling on his Saviour in despair from the bottom of the abyss, man, now that he knows he is heard, hesitates ashamed, ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... a Methodist hymn in his musical throat, The Sun was emitting his ultimate note; His quivering larynx enwrinkled the sea Like an Ichthyosaurian blowing his tea; When sweetly and pensively rattled and rang This plaint which an ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... pain.] Lamentation. — N. lament, lamentation; wail, complaint, plaint, murmur, mutter, grumble, groan, moan, whine, whimper, sob, sigh, suspiration, heaving, deep sigh. cry &c. (vociferation) 411; scream, howl; outcry, wail of woe, ululation; frown, scowl. tear; weeping &c. v.; flood of tears, fit ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... roam not there, Thou mourner fair, Nor pour the fruitless tear! The plaint of woe is all too low— The ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... the plaint of modern Germany. We seek, they say, to do merely what England and France—it were indiscreet to mention Austria—did in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They were vigorous peoples with an impulse to ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... was not long in the heavens before the barrel organ, silenced at midnight, renewed its plaint and the business of the day began. After an early breakfast Cleofonte and Luigi retired to the dressing tent, emerging after a while in gorgeous costumes of pink fleshings and spangles, their hair well greased with pomatum, their mustachios elaborately curled. ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... should curb my grief. I should entone No plaint to thee; no loss should I bemoan! I should be patient, I, though full of care, And not attempt, by bias of a prayer, To sway thy spirit, or to urge anew A claim contested. For my days are few; My days, I ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... Guernsey and jersey by an English privateer, who robbed the navigators of all they brought from the land they had visited, the most important loss being the journal of the expedition. On his arrival at Honfleur, De Gonneville immediately entered a plaint before the Admiralty Court of Normandy, and wrote a report of his voyage, which was signed by the principal ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... And on the holy hearth, The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint; In urns, and altars round, A drear and dying sound Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar power foregoes his ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... in her veins. What further inch of ground was there for a fight? And if the fight were over, why should he rob his boy of one sparkle from off the joy of his triumph? Silverbridge was now standing before him abashed by that plaint, inwardly sustained no doubt by the conviction of his great success, but subdued by his father's wailing. "However,—perhaps we had better let that pass," said the Duke, with a long sigh. Then Silverbridge took his father's hand, and looked up in his face. "I ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... a world's anguish— But it sleeps, and I on the housetops Commune with souls long dead who guard our land at midnight, A strength in each hushed heart— I seem to hear the Atlantic moaning on our shores with the plaint of the dying And rolling on our shores with the rumble of battle.... I seem to see my country growing golden toward California, And, as fields of daisies, a people, with slumbering up-turned faces Leaned over by Two Brothers, And the greatness ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... startled. Why was one in speech so like a ghost selected his companion? And that verse, of all to him most afflicting, and which in hours of despair he had repeated until his very spirit had become colored with its reproachful plaint—who put it in ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... but he was too expert a farmer to fail. At threshing time the crew looked forward to working for Ben, the farmer, and dreaded the meals prepared by Bella, his wife. She was notoriously the worst cook and housekeeper in the county. And all through the years, in trouble and in happiness, her plaint was the same: "If I'd thought I was going to stick down on a farm all my life, slavin' for a pack of men folks day and night, I'd rather have died. Might as well be ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... more than that: he could add to David's plaint and say, my only friend. In Purdy the one person he had been intimate with passed out of his life. There was nobody to take the vacant place. He had been far too busy of late years to form new friendships: what was left of him after the day's ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... bosses, at work building the foundation of the dam. Later, he crossed the basin, followed the well-beaten trail up the slope to the level, and shortly he was in Hanrahan's saloon across the street from Braman's bank, listening to the plaint of Jim Lefingwell, the Circle Cross owner, whose ranch was east of town. Lefingwell was big, florid, and afflicted with perturbation that was almost painful. So exercised was he that he ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... respite from my woes, but rather increases them. When the day's duties are over, and all the house is still, I lie tossing ceaselessly, torn by conflicting doubts and fears. E'en as the wakeful bird sits darkling all night long, and pours her endless plaint, now low and mellow, now piercing high and shrill, so wavers my spirit in its purpose, and threads the unending maze of thought. Sweet home of my wedded joy, must I leave thee, and all the faces which I love so well, and the great possessions which he gave into my keeping? Shall I become ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... plaint charged that this letter written to the father of the plaintiff by Lady Wilde was a libel reflecting on the character and chastity of Miss Travers, and as Lady Wilde was a married woman, her husband Sir William Wilde was joined in the action ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... yet full perfection of southern beauty, and she saw also the returning ardor in the face of her lover as he, too, looked at her image. Her black eyes grew soft, her lips parted slightly—with a sudden exuberance he caught her to him, and this time he held her so tensely that, although her plaint was the same, her tone was altogether different. "But I don't want you to marry—even without love, I don't want you ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... rules of the tournament, and it is evident that he is well acquainted with all the minutiae of the jeu parti and the tenso (song of dispute) of the Provencal singers, and would willingly imitate their sirventes (moral and political song). His plaint over the decadence of poetry among the Jews is characteristic: "Where now are the marvels of Hebrew poetry? Mayhap thou'lt find them in the Provencal or Romance. Aye, in Folquet's verses is manna, ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... came and went and came again, through the melody, until the last tones fell on that note and were held suspended in a tremulous plaint. ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... other way of expressing this idea)—noises which, so far from interrupting the universal tranquillity of earth, sea, and sky, rather tended to reveal to us how quiet the world round us really was. Such sounds as I refer to were the peculiar, melancholy—yet, it seemed to me, cheerful—plaint of sea-birds floating on the glassy waters or sailing in the sky; also the subdued twittering of little birds among the bushes, the faint ripples on the beach, and the solemn boom of the surf upon the distant coral reef. We felt very glad ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... The plaint was just another of the rumblings of discontent contributing to the grand explosion of thirteen years later. The intricacies were entered into in detail by ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... strike their keys in unison; this seemed to him for the first time childish. Then he played some lively bars on the piano alone; they sounded too light and trivial, and he turned to the other instrument. As the plaint of the reeds arose, it filled his sense like a solemn organ-music, and transfigured the place; the notes swelled to the ample vault of a church, and at the high altar he was celebrating the mass in his sacerdotal robes. He suddenly caught his fingers ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... soul He ever, And thy heart's deep plaint is hearing; What to another thou wouldst never Tell, reveal to God, ne'er fearing. He is not far, But standeth near thee, Who poor men's pray'r Marks, soon will hear ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... remember the plaint of the wind on the moor, Crying at dawning, and crying at shut of the day, And the call of the gulls that is eerie and dreary and dour, And the sound of the surge as it breaks on the ...
— Sprays of Shamrock • Clinton Scollard
... of Abbot Sampson's abbacy we monks, after full deliberation in chapter, laid our formal plaint before the abbot in his court. We said that the rents and revenues of all the good towns and boroughs in England were steadily growing and increasing to the enrichment of their lords, in every case save in that of our town of St. Edmund. The customary rent of L40 which it pays never rises higher. ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... clothes in tatters and themselves worn and cadaverous. A nimbus of mosquitoes buzzed about each man's head. Their faces were coated with blue clay. Each carried a lump of this damp clay, and, whenever it dried and fell from their faces, more was daubed on in its place. There was a querulous plaint in their voices, an irritability of movement and gesture, that told of broken sleep and a losing struggle with ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... true intent or meaning of this act, his election should be void; and every person so sitting and voting should forfeit a certain sum to be recovered, by such persons as should sue for the same by action of debt, bill, plaint, or information, whereon no essoign, privilege, protection, or wager of law should be allowed, and only one imparlance: that if any person should have delivered in, and sworn to his qualification as aforesaid, and taken his seat in the house of commons, yet at any ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... sweet, melodious, supplicating voice, weeping the Ave Maria of Gounod. The music of the procession was silenced, the praying ceased, and Father Salvi himself stopped. The voice trembled and brought tears to the cheeks of those who heard it. That voice expressed more than a salutation, a prayer, or a plaint. ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... hour followed this plaint! Did any aspirant for literary or dramatic honors ever pass to fame through such an antechamber of horrors? Did poet of the day ever have his head so maltreated? To be dipped in the rain-water tub, soused again and ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... there thrilled through all some occult quality of tone and expression that was unspeakably touching. Indeed, it was a wonderful sight to see this sentimental blackleg, with a pack of cards in his pocket and a revolver at his back, sending his voice before him through the dim woods with a plaint about his "Nelly's grave," in a way that overflowed the eyes of the listener. A sparrow-hawk, fresh from his sixth victim, possibly recognizing in Mr. Hamlin a kindred spirit, stared at him in surprise, and was fain to confess the superiority of man. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... il est aimable a sa maison de campagne, et vous savez qu'on a plus de plaisir a aimer qu'a admirer." On his death, Rapin thus speaks of him: "Il n'y eut jamais une plus belle ame jointe a un plus bel esprit. Le plus grand de tous les eloges est, que le peuple l'a pleure; et chacun s'est plaint de sa mort comme de la perte d'un ami, ou de ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... contracted a slight malarial fever which for the next six or seven years never entirely relaxed its hold on him. Among his papers has recently been found the long, wild, pessimistic rhapsody to which reference has already been made and in which there is talk of suicide. The plaint is of the degeneracy among men, of the destruction of primitive simplicity in Corsica by the French occupation, of his own isolation, and of his yearning to see his friends once more. Life is no longer worth while; his country gone, a patriot ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... genuine Tennysonian harmony, pitched in the keys that most fittingly suit the singer's mood, are interspersed through the drama, and serve to relieve the narratives of their gloom and plaint. Their presence, we cannot help thinking, recalls work better done, and more within the limitations of the poet's genius, than this drama of "Queen Mary." As a dramatic representation the drama had the advantage of being produced ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... continued to walk and to observe. But they felt conscious that another life, intimate yet remote, hovered round them all the while. Sounds of music came to them at intervals; sometimes it was the doleful tones of a violin, sometimes the quiet plaint of a flute; again it was the reed-like voice of some unseen singer which sang a ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... tall young creature radiantly facing life, but as a tired little child in this very room stepping' defeated from the fountain, because she could not make her desires come true! She was listening to the old plaint: "I have used the old games—I ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... his arrival he began to complain that he felt worse. It was then that he became the ranch's incubus, its harpy, its Old Man of the Sea. He shut himself in his room like some venomous kobold or flibbertigibbet, whining, complaining, cursing, accusing. The keynote of his plaint was that he had been inveigled into a gehenna against his will; that he was dying of neglect and lack of comforts. With all his dire protestations of increasing illness, to the eye of others he remained unchanged. His currant-like eyes were as bright and diabolic ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... paid no attention to this boyish plaint, for he was fumbling in the locker, then withdrew his hand and uncoiled an ordinary fish-line, with painted ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... that instant, the plaint of the hapless German who had managed to get hold of the ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... thick hair, passed her hands over her hot temples, and stood listening to the distant whistle of a partridge— to the plaint of the lonely dove nestled among the pine boughs high above her; and gradually a holy calm stole over her face, fixing it as the merciful touch of death stills features that have long writhed in mortal agony. Into her struggling heart entered a strength which comes only when weary, ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... Than shal I haue two coliers 28 Pour mes cheuaulx de querue. For my horses of the plowh. Xpristiene la fylle Xpristine the doughter Se plaint du serrurier, Complayned her of the lokyer, Pour ce quil nye By cause that he denyeth 32 Dun enfant quil gaigna. Of a ...
— Dialogues in French and English • William Caxton
... to White Hall with Sir W. Pen. So to Mr. Montagu, where his man, Mons. Eschar, makes a great com plaint against the English, that they did help the Spaniards against the French the other day; and that their Embassador do demand justice of our King, and that he do resolve to be gone for France the next week; which I, and all that I met with, are very ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... night it lasted, nor two. For four days the uproar showed no sign of ever lessening, and on the fifth the eighteen hundred voices were so hoarse that the calves merely whispered their plaint, gave over in disgust and began nosing the scattered piles of hay. The cows, urged by hunger, strayed from the blackened circle around the corrals and went to burrowing in the snow for the ripened grass whereby they must live throughout the winter. They were driven ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... sap in Bennington, the budding of the pussy willows along the main street in Syracuse, the first chirp of the blue bird, the swan song of the blue point, the annual tornado in St. Louis, the plaint of the peach pessimist from Pompton, N.J., the regular visit of the tame wild goose with a broken leg to the pond near Bilgewater Junction, the base attempt of the Drug Trust to boost the price of quinine foiled in the House by Congressman Jinks, the first tall poplar struck by lightning ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... rich swirling harp, and soothing tones of flutes and muted horns. Then, as all other voices are hushed, the clarinet sings a strain that ends in lowest notes of expressive grief (Recit., espressivo dolente)—where we can almost hear the words. It is answered by a sweet plaint ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... heart you'd be meaning," he corrected. "'Tis the very heart and throat of love that are yours this night. And for the first time, dear lady, have I heard the full fair volume that is yours. Never again plaint that your voice is thin. Thick it is, and round it is, as a great rope, a great golden rope for the mooring of argosies in the harbors of ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... stream, WAINSBECK, the mossy-scattered rocks among, In fancy's ear making a plaintive song To the dark woods above, that waving seem To bend o'er some enchanted spot, removed From life's vain coil; I listen to the wind, And think I hear meek Sorrow's plaint, reclined O'er the forsaken tomb of him she loved!— Fair scenes, ye lend a pleasure, long unknown, To him who passes weary on his way;— Yet recreated here he may delay A while to thank you; and when years have flown, And haunts that charmed ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... coming out of the night tells of the sleepless activity of the loon. The whip-poor-will in the adjacent shrubbery seems companionable, and there is a friendly spirit in the short, shrill tremolo of the night-hawk from the invisible sky. Even the plaint of the screech-owl has a tone of human sympathy. But the dreary cadence of the loon is the voice of the inhospitable night, repelling every thought of human association. It does not entreat, it does not warn; yet there is a fascination ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... native land!' What precious hopes are severed one by one! What hearts lie crushed and sick by 'hope deferred!' How many dear ones, stretched along the sand, Bleed out their lives beneath a blighting sun— With but a word— 'Mother!' for plaint or prayer! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... become a great lady, could, not reasonably continue her office of governess to the King's children. M. Colbert, that man of vigour, that Mount Atlas, capable of supporting all things without a plaint, had been charged with the care of the ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... I gat me from thence, Before the clerks of the Chancery; Where many I found earning of pence; But none at all once regarded me. I gave them my plaint upon my knee; They liked it well when they had it read; But, lacking money, ...
— English Satires • Various
... a further plaint, signed with Phoebe's name, in a rather more uneven hand. Ishmael found himself remembering, as his eye met them again, her little tricks with the pen—the wandering tails to her words, the elaborate capitals which gave a touch of individuality to the regular slanting ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... taking up the plaint. "I tell you what," she added. "Let's all just get undressed and tumble into the big ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... cheerily.' Now a small bird is shrilling with a fine insect tone. A Flicker, a Wood-pewee, and a Phoebe follow in quick succession. Then a Tufted Titmouse squeals. To display his versatility, he gives a dull performance which couples the 'go-back' of the Guinea fowl with the plaint of the Wood-pewee, two widely diverse vocal sounds. With all the performance there is such perfect self-reliance and consciousness of superior ability that one feels that the singer has but to choose what bird ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... Feast To John J. Knickerbocker, Jr. The Bottle and the Bird The Man Who Worked with Dana on the "Sun" A Democratic Hymn The Blue and the Gray It is the Printer's Fault Summer Heat Plaint of the Missouri 'Coon in the Berlin Zoological Gardens The Bibliomaniac's Bride Ezra J. M'Manus to a Soubrette The Monstrous Pleasant Ballad of the Taylor Pup Long Meter To DeWitt Miller Francois Villon Lydia Dick The Tin Bank In New Orleans The Peter-Bird Dibdin's Ghost An Autumn Treasure-Trove ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... in a fortnight had fallen from a high plane of life to the pitiful level of brutes. Only here and there was an exception. This man, Crittenden, was one. When sane, he was gentle, uncomplaining, considerate. Delirious, there was never a plaint in his voice; never a word passed his lips that his own mother might not hear; and when his lips closed, an undaunted ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... Columba known to me. The pleasing quality of the sound as well as the variety in it could be well noted here where the birds were many, scattered about on ledges and projections high above the earth, and when bird after bird uttered its plaint, each repeating his note half a dozen to a dozen times, one in slow measured time, and deep-voiced like the rock-dove, but more musical; another rapidly, with shorter, impetuous notes in a higher key, as if carried away by excitement. ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... N. cry &c v.; voice &c (human) 580; hubbub; bark &c (animal) 412. vociferation, outcry, hullabaloo, chorus, clamor, hue and cry, plaint; lungs; stentor. V. cry, roar, shout, bawl, brawl, halloo, halloa, hoop, whoop, yell, bellow, howl, scream, screech, screak^, shriek, shrill, squeak, squeal, squall, whine, pule, pipe, yaup^. cheer; hoot; grumble, moan, groan. snore, snort; grunt &c (animal sounds) 412. vociferate; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the attention of the garrulous twelve was finally given to the presiding officer. For a moment, silence fell. It was broken by Ruth Howard, a girl with large, soulful brown eyes and a manner of rapt earnestness, who uttered her plaint in ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... the height of the French troubles with the Commune, formidable revolts were going on among the descendants of those untamable wretches whom Saint Arnaud smoked out in a cave. In July the garrison at Setif heard the plaint of a friendly cadi, named D'joudi, who had been wantonly attacked for his loyalty to the French by some organized mutineers under Mohammed Ben-Hadad. The poor wretch had been obliged to flee, with his women and his flocks, into ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... had become a secondary factor. Scotty probably would have denied the assertion emphatically, yet at the bottom of his consciousness he realized that had she told him to sell everything he possessed for what he could get and return to old Sussex he would have complied. Considering Mollie's daily plaint, it was a constant source of wonder to him that the girl did not do this; but she seemed wholly satisfied with things as they were. For exercise and excitement she rode almost every horse upon the place—rode ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... outcry, clamor, vociferation, yoicks, scream, shriek, howl, yell, proclamation; slogan, shibboleth; halloo, whoop, hoot: crying, weeping, wail, lamentation, mewl, plaint whimpering. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... unseeing down the sun-sifted dusk of the green lane. Here the desert silence was like a benediction of peace, broken now and then by the faint, shrill note of an insect, or the occasional soft, mournful plaint ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... shrieked. The Emperor uttered no plaint. A puff of white-gray smoke rose to heaven. And those who watched there no ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... gloom sails the silv'ry moon, O'er forests dark and still, Now far, now near, ever sad and clear, Comes the plaint of the whip-poor-will; With song and laugh, and with kindly chaff, We startle the birds above, Then rest tired heads on our cedar beds, To dream ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... there to hear the plaint of Dan, the latter must have despaired of a reply before he put the question. Once more he cheerfully greeted Inspector Val, and the two withdrew to ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... upon Count Theobald, and invaded Champagne. Blanche, taking with her the young king her son, went to the aid of Count Theobald, and, on arriving near Troyes, she had orders given, in the king's name, for the barons to withdraw: "If you have plaint to make," said she, "against the Count of Champagne, present before me your claim, and I will do you justice." "We will not plead before you," they answered, "for the custom of women is to fix their choice upon him, in ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Manchester Territorials were distressed to find that thousands of yards of hurdles were being lined with the best tent cloth at 1s. 4d. a yard, instead of with cheap cotton at a quarter the price. I repeated their plaint to a Regular officer of the old school, expecting sympathetic indignation. "Magnificent," was his reply. "It shows the world in what ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... you can be freed from the tyranny of your father whenever you like now. We now have all that is necessary for lodging a formal plaint in court. We have sequestration of the person, threats and bodily violence by the aid of third parties, and words and blows which have endangered life; our case is entirely complete. A surgeon ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... twisted roots of a gigantic oak forming a rude but simple chair fit to enthrone the king of the forest and his dryad queen. No sound came to break the quiet of the evening hour save the monotonous plaint of a whippoorwill in a distant brake, and the ceaseless chirm of insects among the leafy boughs and down in the ferns that clustered ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... decree the judgment of the first and second death. Come but one step near to my Majesty, and before your eyes, and the eyes of all the multitude who watch, I hurl myself from this hideous place into the waters of the Nile. Yet ere I go to join dead Pharaoh, and side by side with him to lay our plaint against you before the eternal gods, listen to our curse upon you. From this day forward a snake shall prey upon your vitals, gnawing upwards to your heart. The spirits of Pharaoh and of all his servants whom you have slain shall haunt your ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... Sunset, and evening star, and that clear call, The twilight shadow, and the evening bell, Bring naught of gloom for thee. Whate'er befall Thou must indeed fare well. But we—we have but memories now, and love The plaint of fond regret ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... each ditty with the glorious tale?[60] Ah! such, alas! the hero's amplest fate! When granite moulders and when records fail, A peasant's plaint prolongs his dubious date.[bw] Pride! bend thine eye from Heaven to thine estate, See how the Mighty shrink into a song! Can Volume, Pillar, Pile preserve thee great? Or must thou trust Tradition's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... "I bring a plaint against M. de La Tour d'Azyr! You are out of your senses, I think. Oh, you are mad; as mad as that poor friend of yours who has come to this end through meddling in what did not concern him. The language he used here to M. le Marquis on the score of Mabey was of the most offensive. Perhaps ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... smallest consoling idea has a strength of its own that is not to be found in the most magnificent plaint, the most exquisite expression of sorrow. The vast, profound thought that brings with it nothing but sadness is energy burning its wings in the darkness to throw light on the walls of its prison; but the timidest thought of hope, or of cheerful acceptance of inevitable law, in itself ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... to silver, through a thin veil of cirrus cloud. A pallid moon was rising. Far below, a breeze stirred the tree-fronds in Madison Forest. A bat staggered drunkenly about the tower, then reeled away into the gloom; and, high aloft, an owl uttered its melancholy plaint. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... as the red spark went out in the darkness a lonely birdcall floated across the river—the strange squealing plaint of the great cock-o'-the-pines. She answered, imitating it perfectly. Then ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... betwixt plaint and humor, that it always seemed to him that no one ever gave an abbreviation or an abstract of anything which he had written, without very nearly spoiling the original. This would be preeminently true of an abstract of this examination; ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... "When I set out for Lyonnesse" A Thunderstorm in Town The Torn Letter Beyond the Last Lamp The Face at the Casement Lost Love "My spirit will not haunt the mound" "Wessex Heights In Death divided The Place on the Map Where the Picnic was The Schreckhorn A Singer asleep A Plaint to Man God's Funeral Spectres that grieve "Ah, are you digging on my grave?" Satires of Circumstance At Tea In Church By her Aunt's Grave In the Room of the Bride-elect At the Watering-place In the Cemetery Outside the Window In the Study At the Altar-rail In the Nuptial Chamber In the Restaurant ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... in one of the semi-insane outbursts which I had learned to dread, she poured out her loathing and detestation of her brother. She was a Coverly (such was the gist of her plaint) and the doors of Friar's Park were closed to her; the world knew nothing of her existence. In the event of the death of Sir Burnham, then Roger would inherit the property, and complete disaster would be ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... a bitterness in all this to Phineas himself of which he could not but make plaint to his companion. "The truth is," he said, "that a man in office must be a slave, and ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... interval he said, "This is kind, but no more than I expected of you." Pallid, worn, gray, bent, feeble, suffering from inflammation of the eyes, he was a painful sight to a friend. He uttered no plaint, and made no allusion to the irons (which had been removed); said the light kept all night in his room hurt his eyes a little, and, added to the noise made every two hours by relieving the sentry, prevented much sleep; but matters had changed for the better ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... 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; But the land of the Spirits is fairer still, For the winds of winter blow never there; And forever the songs of the whippowils ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... boon? If so, it must befall That Death, whene'er he call, Must call too soon. Though fourscore years he give Yet one would pray to live Another moon! What kind of plaint have I, Who perish in July? I might have had to ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... at each one that tittered, till the most were a-holding of their sides with laughter. Jack Lewthwaite drew the Chancellor, and right well he carried him. Ere their Majesties abdicated, and the Court dispersed, had we rare mirth, for Aunt Joyce laid afore the throne a 'plaint of one of her maids for treason, which was Gillian, that could no way keep her countenance: and 'twas solemnly decreed of their Majesties, and ratified of the Chancellor, that the said prisoner ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... be your right hand in so far as I'm able, Mr. Flagg," declared Latisan, at last, pricked by the repeatedly iterated plaint. "You can depend on me just as far as I can stretch ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... richer—deeper, a child's voice no longer, and he knew that she was singing of his mad moment in the woods, which had brought the end of all things that had mattered in her life. It was no girl who sang now, but a woman who had learned the meaning of the song, the plaint of birds once joyous, of woodland flowers once gay—at the memory of a spring that was no more. He had told her that she would sing that song well some day when she learned what it meant. She would never sing it again as she had sung it to-night. All the dross that Peter had worn in the world ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... were here to enjoy this fine spring morning. It is like April, bright, calm, warm, and dreamy, sparrows singing, robins and blue birds calling, hens cackling, crows cawing, while now and then the ear detects the long drawn plaint of the meadow lark. The ice in the placid river floats languidly by and I dare say your hunting ground is alive with ducks. I am boiling sap on the old stove set up here in the chip yard. I have ten trees tapped and lots of sap. I wish you had some of ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... the forest, fifty, perhaps a hundred, men were waiting for him—for him? Yes, the mighty arms of the Union were about him; the trump of a fame, such as no song had ever sung, was poised to blow to the world his daring. Hark! Heavens, yes; the long, tender plaint of the whippoorwill. Ah! now, now there was no doubt. In swooning delight he waits. Good Heaven! What's that sound? Angels and ministers of grace, the dead in wailing woe over the deed about to be done? ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... shrieking to his relative with the timorous plaint of the little fellow taking his first swimming lesson. But his agonized hands again encountered the cold and weak support of the raft instead of that island of hard muscles crowned with a ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... song, far and faint, There is no sound in all the wood; 10 The murmuring pines are still; their plaint At ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... spoke of Goethe. Even "Wilhelm Meister" seemed to be only a symptom of decline, of a moral "going to the dogs". The "Menagerie of tame cattle," the worthlessness of the hero in this book, revolted Niebuhr, who finally bursts out in a plaint which Biterolf(8) might well have sung: "nothing so easily makes a painful impression as when a great mind despoils itself of its wings and strives for virtuosity in something greatly inferior, while it renounces more lofty ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... of them started on; at the first jolt a cry sounded from the straw, another, another—the deep sighs of the dying, the groans of the stricken, the muttered curses of teamsters—rose in one terrible plaint. Another wagon started—the wounded wailed; another started—another—another—and the long train creaked on, the air vibrating with the weak protestations of miserable, mangled creatures tossing their thin arms towards the sky. And ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... seated with the ancient Rachel. She said, "Beatrice, true praise of God, why dost thou not succor him who so loved thee that for thee he came forth from the vulgar throng? Dost thou not hear the pity of his plaint? Dost thou not see the death that combats him beside the stream whereof the sea hath no vaunt?" In the world never were persons swift to seek their good, and to fly their harm, as I, after these words were uttered, came here below, from ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... don't let me hear you begin that dismal plaint. Do you really mean to insinuate that I, your mother, would ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade
... room the sounds had died, leaving a heavy silence, and neither noticed. For of old Death young Life is ever heedless; ever the brazen fanfare of life's trumpets drowns the thin reed-plaint of death. In the passage ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... gave her sorrows vent, A thousand tears she pour'd; Her mournful voice, her moving plaint, The ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... added not, and from her turned: But Eve Not so repulst, with Tears that ceas'd not flowing, And Tresses all disorderd, at his feet Fell humble; and embracing them, besought His Peace, and thus proceeding in her Plaint. Forsake me not thus, Adam! Witness Heav'n What Love sincere, and Reverence in my Heart I bear thee, and unweeting have offended, Unhappily deceived! Thy Suppliant I beg, and clasp thy Knees; bereave me not (Whereon I live!) thy gentle Looks, thy Aid, Thy Counsel, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... but Adam sat in pained silence—he could not speak otherwise than tenderly to his mother to-day, but he could not help being irritated by this plaint. It was not possible for poor Lisbeth to know how it affected Adam any more than it is possible for a wounded dog to know how his moans affect the nerves of his master. Like all complaining women, she complained in the expectation of being ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot |
