"Wist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been at hand all his infancy, boyhood, and young manhood: he was in the world with his father in his heart: that was the kingdom of heaven. Lonely man on the hillside, or boy the cynosure of doctor-eyes, his father was everything to him:—'Wist ye not that I must be in my ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... she, Olindo hight the youth, Both or one town, both in one faith were taught, She fair, he full of bashfulness and truth, Loved much, hoped little, and desired nought, He durst not speak by suit to purchase ruth, She saw not, marked not, wist not what he sought, Thus loved, thus served he long, but not ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... him to shave off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him. And she said, "The Philistines be upon thee, Samson." And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, "I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself." And he wist not that the Lord was departed ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... a draught of merry go down, The best it is in all the town. But yet I would not for my gown, My husband wist. ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... Wilton," [Note 2] said Philippa, "and right glad are mine to light on no unfriendlier face. Truly at the first we took you for rebels, and had it not been for your coats and your standard, I had picked you off with my matchlock ere I wist who ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... said he never knew him till that time, nor wist what was said to him, nor wist where he had been, while he had been sick, till now; and he asked who were the godfathers, and the queen told him, and he ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... head that mother and that mamma kissed, That never bent to worship god, I wist, Upon thish head she dared to plant her feet, Like jackals on the carrion ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... Clerk of the Weather insist, And lay down the weather-law, Pintado and gannet they wist That the winds blow whither they ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... a mortal foot has hardly ever trodden them. Vasobiove, however, in his boat alone, set sail from Nagasaki, and, in spite of wind and waves, landed on the green shore of Horaisan. Two hundred years he sojourned there; yet wist he not how long the period was, there where everything remained the same, where there was neither birth nor death, where none heeded the flight of time. With dance and music, in intercourse with ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... none wist! Live, day by day, With little and with little swelling Thy tale of duty done—the way The wise ant-people build ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... wist, before I kist, That love had been sae ill to win, I had lockt my heart in a case of gowd, And pinnd it with a siller pin. And, oh! that my young babe were born, And set upon the nurse's knee, And I myself were dead and gane! And the green ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... And he shall stand with fear, and wist not what to say. And behold, he shall deny unto you; and he shall make as if he were astonished; nevertheless, he shall declare unto you that ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... them sat clerks a great rout,[98] Which fast did write by one assent; There stood up one and cried about "Richard, Robert, and John of Kent!" I wist not well what this man meant, He cried so thickly there indeed. But he that ...
— English Satires • Various
... soure, and full of fancies fraile, She woxe: yet wist she neither how nor why: She wist not, silly Mayd, what she did aile, Yet wist she was not well at ease, perdie; Yet thought it was ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... a summer sea; that she might bring My bride, who wist not that I loved her so— This is no bitter day for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... astonishment clothed him as with a garment, and his wits were wildered and he began to rub his eyes, lest they be dimmed or darkened, and to gaze intently; but at last he was certified that no trace of the pavilion remained nor sign of its being; nor wist he the why and the wherefore of its disappearance. So his surprise increased and he smote hand upon hand and the tears trickled down his cheeks over his beard, for that he knew not what had become of his daughter. Then he sent out officials forthright and summoned the Grand ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... that was Sir Lucan de Butlere, and his brother Sir Bedivere: and they were full sore wounded. Jesu mercy, said the king, where are all my noble knights becomen? Alas that ever I should see this doleful day. For now, said Arthur, I am come to mine end. But would to God that I wist where were that traitor Sir Mordred, that hath caused all this mischief. Then was King Arthur ware where Sir Mordred leaned upon his sword among a great heap of dead men. Now give me my spear, said ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... wist f. being, existence: well-being, abundance, plenty: provision, nourishment, subsistence, food, meal, ...
— A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary - For the Use of Students • John R. Clark Hall
... weigh, whey. weal (wealth), weal (a swelling), wheel. weald, wield, wheeled. while, wile. whine, wine, white, wight. whether, weather. whither, wither. whig, wig. whit, wit. what, wot. whet, wet. whirr, were wer'. whin, win. whist, wist. which, witch, wych (elm). ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... an opinion as to his own will with regard to Joseph. Our Lord seems purposely to have drawn their thoughts from his earthly connexion with them, and to have raised their minds to a contemplation of his unearthly, his heavenly, and eternal origin. "How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" After this time, though the writings of the Holy Book, either historical, doctrinal, or prophetic, at the lowest calculation embrace a period of fourscore years, no allusion ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... which a further revelation was to be made in respect to the breaking of the spell which had fixed upon him the frightful doom of the Wehr-Wolf! But little suspected Fernand Wagner that one morning, while he slept, his boat had borne him through the proud fleet of the Ottomans—little wist he that his beloved Nisida had caught sight of him as he was wafted rapidly past the stern of the kapitan-pasha's ship! For on that occasion he had slept during hours; and when he had awakened, not a bark nor sail save his own was visible on the ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... years sparing Is scarce three seven years spending,—never caring What will ensue, when all their coin is gone, And all too late, then thrift is thought upon: Oft have I heard, that pride and riot kissed, And then repentence cries, 'for had I wist.' ...
— The London Prodigal • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... up, saying, 'Arise up quickly.' And his chains fell off from his hands. And the angel said unto him, 'Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals.' And so he did. And he saith unto him, 'Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me.' And he went out, and followed him, and wist not that it was true which was done by the angel; but thought he saw ...
— Raphael - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... sick babes, stifled half to death, Grow rosy at my country breath. I lent a shoulder to your ship; I moaned with that sad hermit's lip; I helped disperse the dragon's mist; And some bell's voice, 'twas yours I wist, I handed up to winds on high Who wing a loftier flight than I. But, hark! a rider leaves ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall
... befell me then and there I know not well—I never knew— First came the loss of light, and air, And then of darkness too: I had no thought, no feeling—none— Among the stones I stood a stone,[21] And was, scarce conscious what I wist, As shrubless crags within the mist; For all was blank, and bleak, and grey; It was not night—it was not day; 240 It was not even the dungeon-light, So hateful to my heavy sight, But vacancy absorbing space, And fixedness—without ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... in my bed slepe full unmete Was unto me, but why that I ne might Rest I ne wist, for there n'as erthly wight [As I suppose] had more of hertis ese Than I, for I ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... King, 'we thought thus—as ye wist—that the King o' Scots would come obedient to our summoning and that there we should lie some days awaiting and entertaining him. Thus did I wish to send my Queen swift message of our faring, and I was willing that this, her cousin and mine, should ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... that destiny drives it should so be, Some men will have two wives, and some men three, In store. Some are woe that have any; But so far ken I, Woe is he who has many, For he feels it sore. But young men of wooing, for God that you bought, Be well ware of wedding, and think in your thought "Had I wist" is a thing it serves ye of nought; Mickle still mourning has wedding home brought, And griefs, With many a sharp shower, For thou may catch in an hour That shall serve thee full sour As long as thou lives. For as read I epistle, I have one to my fear As sharp ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... thou bonnie bird That sings beside thy mate; For sae I sat, and sae I sang, And wist na ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... shameful death to every one This Provost doth for those bad Jews prepare That of this murder wist, and that anon: Such wickedness his judgments cannot spare; 180 Who will do evil, evil shall he bear; Them therefore with wild horses did he draw, And after that he hung them by ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... the thing which makes it akin to our Lord's life? Is there not in that Holiest Life a continual undercurrent of "I must"? His earthly life was a course of obedience, not a succession of self-willed efforts; its keynote was, "Wist ye not that I must be ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... The Way of the Wind Had I Wist Recollections Time and Life A Dialogue Plus Ultra A Dead Friend Past Days Autumn and Winter The Death of Richard Wagner Two preludes Lohengrin Tristan und Isolde The Lute and the Lyre Plus Intra Change A Baby's Death One of Twain Death and Birth Birth ...
— A Century of Roundels • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Those romantic pages wist What romance is in the look. Oh, that I could be so bold, So romantic as to bold Half an hour the pensive wrist, And the burden ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... thatch: but as for any abbey or monasterie, not one was left in all the countrie, neither did any man (for the space of two hundred yeares) take care for the repairing or building vp of any thing in decaie, so that the people of that countrie wist not what a moonke ment, and if they saw any, they woondered at the ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (1 of 12) - William the Conqueror • Raphael Holinshed
... Gawain came to the other side of the river, which was both wide and deep, then saw he a great company of folk riding after the knight who bare away the maiden by force, and thus misused her, but he wist not if it was to aid the knight that they thus followed him, or to wreak vengeance on him. He saw many men clad in hauberks, but they were as yet a good mile distant. Sir Gawain rode swiftly after the maiden who went afore, whom the knight thus mishandled, ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... the thought," said Randall, "but there was no way of living. I wist not whether the Ranger might not stir up old tales, and moreover old Martin is ill to move. We brought him down by boat from Windsor, and he has never quitted the house since, nor his bed for the ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and said to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias." For he wist not what to say; for they were sore afraid. And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came ...
— Jesus of Nazareth - A Biography • John Mark
... and "wist," and "wot," and "eke" are antiquated frippery, and unmodernize a poem rather than give it an antique air, as some strong old words may do. "I guess," "I know," "I knew," are ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... had the few, the very few, that wist His Atlantean labour, swerved Their eyes to seek, and in the triumph missed, The man ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... have unto his wife Guenever his daughter. That is to me, said king Leodegrance, the best tidings that ever I heard, that so worthy a king of prowess and noblesse will wed my daughter. And as for my lands I will give him wist I it might please him, but he hath lands enough, him needeth none, but I shall send him a gift shall please him much more, for I shall give him the Table Round, the which Uther Pendragon gave me, and when it is full complete there is an hundred ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... bitterly they bewailed them, and the mariners were at their wits' end, as the gale grew hourly more violent, nor knew they, nor might conjecture, whither they went, they drew nigh the island of Rhodes, albeit that Rhodes it was they wist not, and set themselves, as best and most skilfully they might, to run the ship aground. In which enterprise Fortune favoured them, bringing them into a little bay, where, shortly before them, was arrived the Rhodian ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... best sets ye,' said the bailie, as Andrew pressed forward to catch the answer to some question I had asked about Campbell; 'ye wad fain ride the forehorse an ye wist how. That chield's aye for being out o' the cheese-fat he ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... and no man wist; Hapless, my child, no breast you kist; On no dear knees, a privileged babbler, clomb, Nor knew the ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thou arte the sonne of the lyuinge God/ as though Peter had bene as perfecte as an angell. But immediatly after/ when Christ preached vn to them of his deeth & passion/ Peter was angre & rebuked Christe & thought ernestly [that] he had raued & not wist what he sayde: as at a nother time/ when Christ was so feruently busied in healinge [the] people/ [that] he had not leyser to eate/ they went out to holde him/ supposinge that he had bene besyde him selfe. Ande one [that] cast out deuels ...
— The prophete Ionas with an introduccion • William Tyndale
... lieth heavily Over the ladye's grave; I wist of three That bore it, of a blessed verity! But he hath lifted it in his pure madness, As it were lightsome as a summer gladness, And from the carved niche hath ta'en the lamp, And hung it by ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... "What wist Aunt Joyce thereabout?" murmurs Milly, so that I could just hear. "She never lacked nought ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... I wist all their sport in the Park is but a shadow to that pleasure I find in Plato. Alas! good folk, they never felt what true pleasure meant. ...
— The Guide to Reading - The Pocket University Volume XXIII • Edited by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickenson, and Others
... by the flames. The light was seen far off by many eyes; but little wist they at the time that there was consuming the last remnant of the ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... careful. No matter who the man is—he may be in the pulpit—but if he gets self-conceited he will be sure to fall. We who are followers of Christ need constantly to pray to be made humble, and kept humble. God made Moses' face so to shine that other men could see it; but Moses himself wist not that his face shone, and the more holy in heart a man is the more manifest to the outer world will be his daily life and conversation. Some people talk of how humble they are; but if they have true humility there will be no necessity for them to publish it. It ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... of bloom, And for every kind there was a face, And a voice that has sounded in my room Across the sill from the outer gloom. Each came singly unto her place, But all came every night with the mist; And often they brought so much to say Of things of moment to which, they wist, One so lonely was fain to list, That the stars were almost faded away Before the last went, heavy with dew, Back to the place from which she came— Where the bird was before it flew, Where the flower was before it grew, Where bird and flower were one and the ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost
... first it seemed a little speck, And then it seemed a mist: It moved and moved, and took at last A certain shape, I wist. ...
— The Rime of the Ancient Mariner • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... wept with sore weeping and said to him, "By Allah, I suspected not that passion had come to such a pass with thee, as to cast thee into the arms of death! Had I wist of this, I had been favourable to thy wish, and thou shouldst have had thy will." At this his tears streamed down even as the clouds rail rain, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... occur in the Gospels receive from them a colouring of the same kind, as the answer which He gave His mother when He was twelve years old, 'Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?'" ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... de heer Kellar die door twee personen uit het publiek stevigwordt vast gebonden, zich in een oogwenk wist los te maken ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... obligations that America owes to Washington, must be named this one of pushing Thomas Jefferson, the scholar and man of peace, into the political embroglio and shutting the door. Then it was that Hamilton's taunting temper awoke a degree of power in Jefferson that before he wist not of; then it was that he first fully realized that the "United States" with England as a sole pattern was ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... "Lord God, I thank thee, for I am healed of this malady." Soo when the holy vessell had been there a great while, it went into the chappell againe, with the candlesticke and the light, so that Sir Launcelot wist not where it became, for he was overtaken with sinne, that he had no power to arise against the holy vessell, wherefore afterward many men said of him shame. But he tooke repentance afterward. Then the sicke knight ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... But had I wist before I kiss'd That love had been so ill to win, I'd lock'd my heart in a case o' goud, And pinn'd it wi' a siller pin. Oh, oh! if my young babe were born, And set upon the nurse's knee; An' I mysel' were dead and gane, And the green ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... servant he went down into the wide-wayed city of the foemen, and he hid himself in the guise of another, a beggar, though in no wise such an one was he at the ships of the Achaeans. In this semblance he passed into the city of the Trojans, and they wist not who he was, and I alone knew him in that guise, and I kept questioning him, but in his subtlety he avoided me. But when at last I was about washing him and anointing him with olive oil, and had put on him raiment, and sworn a great oath not to reveal ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... unto Luke Evangelist: For he it was (the aged legends say) Who first taught Art to fold her hands and pray. Scarcely at once she dared to rend the mist Of devious symbols: but soon having wist How sky-breadth and field-silence and this day Are symbols also in some deeper way, She looked through these to God, and was ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... when, rising, The bird—as if surmising - Bore due to southward, crossing by the Froom, And Durnover Great-Field and Fort, the soldier clear advising - Prompted he wist by Whom. ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... remained a great while because no man wist what it meant, till Virgill opened the whole fraude by this deuise. He wrote aboue the same halfe metres this whole verse Exameter. Hos ego versiculos ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... gifts, I wish she had chosen rowth of real friends. I could be doing with more about me of the quality I mention; better than horse and foot would they be, more trusty than the claymores of my clan. It might be the slogan 'Cruachan' whenever it wist, and Archibald of Argile would be more puissant than he of Homer's story. People have envied me when they have heard me called the King of the Highlands—fools that did not know I was the poorest, weakest man of his time, surrounded by flatterers instead ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... and is there no remedy? But have I thus lost it wilfully? I-wis, it was a thing all too dear To be bestowed, and wist not where! It was mine heart! I pray you ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various
... more worlds the Macedonian cried, He wist not Thetis in her lap did hide Another yet; a world reserved for you, To make more great ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... "Wist!" exclaimed the dame, lifting her hands. "Not to Amsterdam tonight, and you've owned your legs were aching under you. Nay, nay—it'll be soon enough to go at ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... goodness—to lead it up to God? Yet those who will admit the mission in all other cases, question it in his case. But what was true in them was much more so in him. He was conscious from the first that he was selected. "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" "To this end I was born, that I might bear witness to the truth." "God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through him, might be saved." "For this cause came I to this hour." "I have finished the work ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... then those in hell that be. Well we now scaping thus the danger I haue tolde, Aboord we come, where few of vs could stand now being colde. Our wounds now being drest, to meat went they that list, But I desired rather rest, for this in minde I wist. That if I might get once a sleepe that were full sound, I should not feele my weary bones nor yet my smarting wound. And lying long aloft vpon my bed in paine, Vnto Morpheus call'd I oft that he would not disdaine ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... Mordred back, that he fled and all his people. So when this battle was done, King Arthur let bury his people that were dead. And then was the noble knight Sir Gawaine found in a great boat, lying more than half dead. When King Arthur wist that Sir Gawaine was laid so low, he went unto him; and there the king made sorrow out of measure, and took Sir Gawaine in his arms, and thrice he swooned. And when he came to himself again, he said, "Alas! my sister's son, here now thou liest, the ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... constantly returns as its norm and type. Of the one hundred and forty-two stanzas in the poem, one hundred and six are the ordinary four-lined stanzas of popular poetry. The language, too, is not obtrusively archaic as it is in Chatterton and some of the Spenserians; at most an occasional "wist" or "eftsoons"; now and then a light accent, in ballad fashion, on the final syllable of a rime-word like mariner or countrie. There is no definite burden, which would have been out of place in a poem that is narrative and not lyrical; but ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... home, and thought no more of his chylde. As sone as he came home, his wyfe asked for her chyld. Whan she spake of the chylde, he loked on his shulder; and whan he sawe he was not ther, he said he wist nat where he was. Out vpon the, horson (quod she), thou hast let mi child fal in to the water (for he passed ouer the water of Dee at a brige). Thou list,[278] hore (quod he): for if he had fallen into the water, I shuld haue ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... they should do, why, soundly box their ears." From the Grammar School of Harrow wrote head-master, Mr. Phfool: "If they do not behave themselves, expel them from the school." From the Training School of Rugby wrote head-master, Mr Wist: "Just take a handful of their hair, and give a sharp, short twist." From the College School of Oxford wrote Professor Rarey Hook: "Instead of nearly killing, overawe them with a look." From the ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... leans upon Time's Chart, Which shows, alas! how soon all men must glide Over meridians on life's ocean tide— Meridians showing how both youth and sage Are sailing northward to the zone of age: On to an atmosphere of gloom I wist, Where mariners are lost in melancholy mist. But gayer thoughts, like spring-tide swallows, dart Through youth's brave ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope
... take hold of them; ye must wreathe them fast with strong sail-ropes, shove and heave with utmost strength trees great and long, that are exceeding strong, and go ye to one stone, all clean, and come again with strength, if ye may it stir." But Merlin wist well how it should happen. The knights advanced with mickle strength; they laboured full greatly, but they had not power, so that they ever any stone might stir! Merlin beheld Uther, who was the king's brother, and Merlin the prophet said these words: "Uther, draw ...
— Brut • Layamon
... wist, before I kiss'd, That love had been sae ill to win, I'd lock'd my heart in a case of gold, And pin'd it with a ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... be thee, Edith," saith Milly in a demure voice. "For it standeth with reason, as thou very well wist, that I shall never see mine elders to make no blunders ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... sweetly did he hear confession, And pleasant was his absolution. He was an easy man to give penance, Whereso wist to have a good pittance; For unto a poor Order for to give, Is signe that a man is well y-shrive; For if he gave, he durste make a vaunt He wiste that a man was repentant. For many a man so hard is of his heart He can not weep although he sorely smart. Therefore instead of weeping ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... cometh down upon the plain, in winter flood from the hills, swollen by the rain of Zeus, and many dry oaks and many pines it sucketh in, and much soil it casteth into the sea, even so renowned Aias charged them, pursuing through the plain, slaying horses and men. Nor wist Hector thereof at all, for he was fighting on the left of all the battle, by the banks of the river Skamandros, whereby chiefly fell the heads of men, and an unquenchable cry arose, around great Nestor and warlike Idomeneus. And Hector with them was warring, and terrible ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... that a divine aim was in his coming, and that a positive result would follow his life. This sense of a definite errand was expressed by him on numerous occasions; in some of them quite incidentally, and in others more directly. You remember how, as a boy in the temple, he said to his mother, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" You remember how, at the marriage in Cana, he said to her again, "My hour is not yet come." So with that precious phrase which on several occasions fell from his lips, "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost." He regarded ...
— Joy in Service; Forgetting, and Pressing Onward; Until the Day Dawn • George Tybout Purves
... wist before I kissed That love had been so ill to win, I 'd locked my heart within a kist And fastened it wi' a ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... darena cross; But ere the keystane she could make, The fient a tail she had to shake! For Nannie, far before the rest, Hard upon noble Maggie prest, And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle; But little wist she Maggie's mettle— Ae spring brought off her master hale, But left behind her ain grey tail: The carlin caught her by the rump, And left poor Maggie scarce a stump. Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read, Ilk man and mother's son, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... a bough o' the willow sae green That waves by yon brook where the wild-flowers grow sheen; And braiding my harp wi' the sweet budding rue, It mellow'd its tones 'mang the saft falling dew; It whisper'd a strain that I wist na to hear, That false was the lassie my bosom held dear; Pride stirr'd me to sing, as I tore off the rue— If she 's got ae sweetheart, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of night their sails were filled, And onward each rejoicing steered: Ah, neither blame, for neither willed, Or wist, what ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... else. Was it not a piece of rare good luck that I was stuck on the jury? Do you know, I believe all would have gone wrong but for me. I put my foot down and said, 'Not guilty,' and would not budge. The rest were almost all inclined to give against you, Matabel, but there was a fellow with a wist in his stupid noddle against capital punishment. He was just as resolute as I was, and between us, we worked the rest round to our way of thinking. But I should like to know the truth about it all, for ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... out of the coffin flew; Earl Harold's mouth it kist; He fell on his face, wherever he stood; And the white dove carried his soul to God Or ever the bearers wist. ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... by my oath, where Master Garret was, and whither I had conveyed him. I said I had not conveyed him, nor yet wist where he was, nor whither he was gone, except he were gone to Woodstock, as I had before said. Surely, they said, I brought him some whither this morning, for they might well perceive by my foul shoes and dirty hosen that I had travelled with him the most ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... her and hearkened eagerly for sound of her; but finding this vain, arose and, creeping stealthily, presently espied her where she lay, face hidden in the dewy grass. Thus stood he chin in hand disquieted and anxious-eyed and wist ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... "Wist England's king that I was ta'en, "O gin a blythe man he wad be! "For anes I slew his sister's son, "And on his breist bane brake ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... But she wist not at first that this was He, That had raised such a boiling passion; For his old costume he had laid aside, And was come to court a mortal bride In a ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... abdicated to join the vassal throng. But she knew it not—knew nothing, indeed, but that she was again in the unforgotten house of God, and pouring out her soul to the soul's great Comforter. And she sat down with the others when the psalm was done, but wist ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... heart, thou bonnie bird, That sings beside thy mate; For so I sat, and so I sang, And wist not ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... Crucifixion, with the kneeling saints, and Angelico's Outer Court of Heaven, with the dancing angels, had been hung in our little Free Kirk. When he went down the aisle with the flagon in the Sacrament, he walked as one in a dream, and wist ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... but verily Never an answer looked should be. But it came to pass from shade Pacing to an open glade, Which the oaks a mighty wall Fence about, methought a call Sounded, then a pale thin mist Rose, a pillar, and fronted me, Rose and took a form I wist, And it wore a hood on 'ts head, And a long white garment spread, And I ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... every scholar should. Now, Mr. Barrett was jealous of the fame of his daughter. The passion of father for daughter, of mother for son—there is often something very loverlike in it—a deal of whimsy! Miss Barrett's darkened room had been illumined by a light that the gruff and goodly merchant wist not of. Loneliness and solitude and physical pain and heart-hunger had taught her things that no book recorded nor tutor knew. Her father could not follow her; her allusions were obscure, he said, wilfully ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... nigh that he touched the holy vessel and kissed it. And anon he was whole, and then he said:—Lord God, I thank thee for I am healed of this malady. So when the holy vessel had been there a great while, it went unto the chapel again with the candlestick and the light, so that Sir Lancelot wist not where it became, for he was overtaken with sin that he had no power to arise against the holy vessel. Wherefore afterwards many men said of him shame. But he took ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... meanness. It is a grace not unworthy of, nay, necessary to, even the perfect humanity. But one thing stands out always: His was the consecrated life. It was all given to its purpose. "He was called Jesus because he should save his people from their sins." "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" "Behold we go up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man shall be betrayed." "To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... was her witchin' smile, Sae piercin', was her coal-black e'e, Sae sairly wounded was my heart, That had na wist sic ills to dree; In vain I strave in beauty's chains, I cou'd na keep my fancy free, She gat my heart sae in her thrall, The bonnie ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... castel, That standeth over yon highe hill? Of town and tower it bears the bell, In earth is none like it untill. For sooth, Thomas, yon is mine own, 165 And the king's of this country; But me were lever[42] be hanged and drawn Or that[43] he wist thou lay me by. When thou com'st to yon castle gay, I pray thee courteous man to be, 170 And whatso any man to thee say, Look thou answer none but me. My lord is served at each mess With thirty knightes fair and free; I shall say, sitting at the dess[44], 175 I took thy speech beyond the sea." Thomas ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... Moses wist not what he asked. His speech was beyond his knowledge. The answer to his request would have consumed him. He asked for the blazing noon when as yet he could only bear the quiet shining of the dawn. The good Lord lets in the ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... The Calif wist not what to answer, and said never a word. So the Prince continued, "Now then, Calif, since I see what a love thou hast borne thy treasure, I will e'en give it thee to eat!" So he shut the Calif up in the Treasure Tower, and bade that neither meat nor drink should be given him, saying, "Now, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... I should see this doleful day," said King Arthur, "for now I come unto mine end. But would to God that I wist where that traitor Sir Mordred is, which hath caused ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... they who had not beheld her before marvelled at her, and her loveliness held all men's hearts in a net of desire, so that they forebore their meat to gaze upon her; and if perchance her hand touched some young man, or her cheek or sweet-breathed mouth came nigh to his face, he became bewildered and wist not where he was, nor what to do. Yet was she as lowly and simple of speech and demeanour as if she were a gooseherd ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... by divers ways To keep this merry tryst, But few of us have kept within The Narrow Way, I wist; For we are those whose ampler wits And hearts have proved our curse— Foredoomed to ken the better things And aye ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... he sprang again into the air; and the magic shoes carried him with greater speed than before down the Rhine valley, and through Burgundy-land, and the low meadows, until he came to the shores of the great North Sea. He sought the halls of old AEgir, the Ocean-king; but he wist not which way to go,—whether across the North Sea towards Isenland, or whether along the narrow channel between Britain-land and the main. While he paused, uncertain where to turn, he saw the pale-haired daughters ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... a wondrous thing, I pray; As long as in that swooning fit I lay, Methought I wist right well what these birds meant, And had good knowing both of their intent, And of their speech, and all that ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... always when he can. We give without comment a mere list of these:—maugre, 'sdeath, eke, erst, deft, romaunt, pleasaunce, certes, whilom, distraught, quotha, good lack, well-a-day, vermeil, perchance, hight, wight, lea, wist, list, sheen, anon, gliff, astrolt, what boots it? malfortunes, ween, God wot, I trow, emprise, duress, donjon, puissant, sooth, rock, bruit, ken, eld, o'ersprent, etc. Of course, such a word as "lady" is made to do good service, and "ye" asserts its well-known ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... short, he was brought into such feare, and as it were still looking behind him, for doubt of your comming after him, that as one out of his wits and amazed, he wist not what to doo, he hasted forward to his death, so that he neither set his men in order of battell, nor marshalled such power as he had about him, but onlie with the old authors of that conspiracie, and the hired bands of the barbarous nations, as one forgetfull of so great preparation which he ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed
... her heart Kriemhild forsware all love. Many a happy day thereafter the maiden lived without that she wist any whom she would care to love. In after days she became with worship a valiant here's bride. He was the selfsame falcon which she beheld in her dream that her mother unfolded to her. How sorely did she avenge this upon her nearest kin, ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... "But had I wist or heard it told That love so strong should be, Ne'er had I held those twain apart ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... But had I wist before I kist That love had been sae ill to win, I'd locked my heart in a case of gold, And pinned it wi' a siller pin. Oh, oh! if my young babe were born, And set upon the nurse's knee; And I myself were dead and gane, And the green grass growing ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... the young man as he stepped out of the door, could see the conduct of the girl now left alone in the drawing-room. She saw the Lady Catharine sink down upon the seat, her head drooped in thought, her hand lying languidly out before her. Pale now and distraught, the Lady Catharine Knollys wist little of what went on before her. She had full concern with the tumult which waged ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... the worldes ije The Mirour of ensamplerie, To reulen and to taken hiede Betwen the men and the godhiede. Now forto speke of the comune, It is to drede of that fortune 500 Which hath befalle in sondri londes: Bot often for defalte of bondes Al sodeinliche, er it be wist, A Tonne, whanne his lye arist, Tobrekth and renneth al aboute, Which elles scholde noght gon oute; And ek fulofte a litel Skar Upon a Banke, er men be war, Let in the Strem, which with gret peine, If evere man it schal restreigne. 510 Wher lawe lacketh, errour groweth, ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... there in the world for skill. They say there wander mighty powers on earth In strange disguises, who, divinely sprung, Veil themselves from us under human mould; Bewilderment it brings me, this his shape Misshappen—from conclusion that alone Withholds me; yet I wist not what to think, In age and manner like—and so unlike In form! Else Vahuka I must have deemed Nala, with Nala's gifts." So in his heart, Varshneya, watching, wondered—being himself The second charioteer. But Rituparna Sat joyous with the speed, delightedly Marking the driving of the Prince: ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... land? He, on his elbow rais'd, with utterance weak, Such as his feeble strength avail'd to speak, Recounts his piteous chance, his name, his home, How up the vessel's side ere while he clomb, And then sunk down in sleep; but who impell'd Its ebon keel, or tissued canvas swell'd, He wist not: faint, and lacking vital heat, He sought some needful aid from looks so sweet. "So brave a knight!—to yield of succour nought— What heart of flint could cherish such a thought? Yet where to harbour him, and how to hide?— The husband not at home, means must be tried!"— ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... the two men, and hid them and said thus, There came men unto me, but I wist not whence ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... need only be duly exercised to win the day. When Susan was gone, that parting arrow did quiver for a moment in Nettie's heart; but the brave little girl had, for that one night, a protection which her sister wist not of. After the door closed, Nettie fell back once more into that hour of existence which expanded and opened out the more for every new approach which memory made to it. Sweet nature, gentle youth, and the Magician greater than either, came round her in a potent circle and defended Nettie. The ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... Godpossibled souls that we nightly impossibilise, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost, Very God, Lord and Giver of Life? For, sirs, he said, our lust is brief. We are means to those small creatures within us and nature has other ends than we. Then said Dixon junior to Punch Costello wist he what ends. But he had overmuch drunken and the best word he could have of him was that he would ever dishonest a woman whoso she were or wife or maid or leman if it so fortuned him to be delivered of his spleen ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... a mortal's fears, Still miss'd the stitch, and stained the web with tears. Unnumbered punctures, small, yet sore, Full fretfully the maiden bore, Till she her lily finger found Crimson'd with many a tiny wound, And to her eyes, suffused with watery woe, Her flower-embroidered web danced dim, I wist, Like blossom'd shrubs, in a quick-moving mist; Till vanquish'd, the despairing ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... 'Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone.' In all regions of life, the consummate apex and crowning charm of excellence is unconsciousness of excellence. Whenever a man begins to imagine that he is good, he begins to be bad; ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... through the medium of Mrs Picklan, who was conjunct in the business with Miss Nelly, the nabob's maiden sister. Mr M'Lucre was not a little confounded at this, for he had imagined that I was the agent on behalf of my lord, who was of the government side, so he wist not what to do, in the morning when he came to me, till ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... said unto them, How is it that ye sought Me! wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?' ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... her for their brother's fate; but they wist not how to comfort her; and, while they sat mingling their tears together, it was announced to them that a humble maiden, bearing a message from the captive laird, desired to ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... idols; and pray'd they in words, That he, the ghost-slayer, would frame for them helping 'Gainst the folk-threats and evil So far'd they their wont, The hope of the heathen; nor hell they remember'd In mood and in mind. And the Maker they knew not, 180 The Doomer of deeds: nor of God the Lord wist they, Nor the Helm of the Heavens knew aught how to hery, The Wielder of Glory. Woe worth unto that man Who through hatred the baneful his soul shall shove into The fire's embrace; nought of fostering weens he, Nor of changing one whit. But well is he soothly That after the death-day ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... A man will not be observed in doing that which he can do best. There is a certain magic about his properest action which stupefies your powers of observation, so that though it is done before you, you wist not of it. The art of life has a pudency, and will not be exposed. Every man is an impossibility until he is born; every thing impossible until we see a success. The ardors of piety agree at last with the coldest skepticism,—that nothing is of us or our ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... O Woman.—Winds wist not of the way they blow. Apart from your kindness, life's at best but a snare. Though a tongue now past praise this bitter thing doth say, I know What solitude means, and ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... stand before me in all her beauty. 'Read not Propertius and Tibullus'—that is easily refrained from; but read what I will, in a minute the type passeth from my eyes, and I see but her face beaming from the page. Nay, cast my eyes in what direction I may wist, it is the same. If I looked at the stained wall, the indistinct lines gradually form themselves into her profile; if I look at the clouds, they will assume some of the redundant outlines of her form; if I cast mine eyes upon the fire in the kitchen-grate, the coals will glow and cool ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... people aught to say against the faithful devotion of a wife, or the patient tenderness of a mother, which are corner-stones of the family, as the family is the corner-stone of all true civilization? But what is the origin of the wife's devotion and the mother's tenderness? These people, surely, are as wist as they are solid. They would have ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... Lordlings, list (if you have lust to list) I write not here a tale of had I wist: But you shall hear of travels, and relations, Descriptions of strange (yet English) fashions. And he that not believes what here is writ, Let him (as I have done) make proof of it. The year of grace, accounted (as I ween) One thousand twice three hundred ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities; and he withdrew himself into the wilderness and prayed." With these quotations compare the following from Saint John: Chap. v. 13. "And he that was healed wist not who it was, for Jesus had conveyed himself away, a multitude being in ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... Essays, too, I wist, And Sermons, to thy mill bring grist; And then thou hast the Navy ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... Even Tide they Talkde and Kist, For She was fayre and He was Kinde; The Sunne went down before She wist ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... they saw Jesus in such company. But Mary, while she rejoiced at finding Him, gently said, "Son, why hast Thou thus dealt with us? Behold Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing." Jesus replied, "How is it that ye sought Me? Wist ye not that I must be about ...
— Mother Stories from the New Testament • Anonymous
... them all, and went and made himself a friar minor, taking the name of Fra Alberto da Imola. With his habit he put on a shew of austerity, highly commending penitence and abstinence, and eating or drinking no sort of meat or wine but such as was to his taste. And scarce a soul was there that wist that the thief, the pimp, the cheat, the assassin, had not been suddenly converted into a great preacher without continuing in the practice of the said iniquities, whensoever the same was privily ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... if in every parish there was such a minister as Dr. Gillespie, the civil magistrate would be compelled to take a very back seat indeed. But it was on Communion Sabbath days that the Doctor became, as it were, transfigured, the face of him shining, though he wist not ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... far wolf's cry to the moon preferred. Their ears were their fancies,—the scene was weird, And the witches [63] dance at the midnight hour. She leaped the brook and she swam the river; Her course through the forest Wiwst wist By the star that gleamed through the glimmering mist That fell from the dim moon's downy quiver. In her heart she spoke to her spirit-mother: "Look down from your teepee, O starry spirit. The cry of Wiwst, O mother, hear it; And touch the heart ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... fetch all the wanderers and travellers in the land, and they brought them before the two Kings, and they were a numerous company. Then Sayf al-Muluk questioned them of the City of Babel and the Garden of Iram, but none of them returned him a reply, whereupon he was bewildered and wist not what to do; but one of the sea-captains said to him, "O auspicious King, an thou wouldst know of this city and that garden, up and hie thee to the Islands of the Indian realm."[FN397] Thereupon Sayf al-Muluk bade bring the ships; which being done, they freighted them with vivers and water ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... Burial Office, there was a play of light and shade upon this man of God who, like Moses, "wist not that his face shone." The majestic notes of faith and assurance which reverberate in the words of this service were, on his lips and in his sympathetic and superb reading, like the overtones and rich harmonies of an organ. There was no formalism nor coldness, no hesitancy ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... the cowboy, both spurring and reining his supple, cringing steed. "Eeeeeee-yip-yeeeee!" Thus vociferating, he rode straight at the footman, with apparently the deliberate wish to ride him down. He wist not that the latter had seen cavalry in his day, and was not easily to be disconcerted, and, finding that he failed to create a panic, he pulled up with the pony's nose ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... in thee and in thy seed. And I shall be thy keeper wheresoever thou shalt go, and shall bring thee again into this land, and I shall not leave till I have accomplished all that I have said. When Jacob was awaked from his sleep and dreaming, he said: Verily God is in this place, and I wist not of it. And he said dreadingly: How terrible is this place, none other thing is here but the house of God and the gate of heaven. Then Jacob arose early and took the stone that lay under his head, and raised ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... delight, because the world is always crying for workers who know how to do their work. The other kind is always to be found but never wanted. The demand is for the ones who know how. It is a significant fact that the first recorded words of Jesus Christ are, 'Wist ye not that I must be about my father's business?' This makes of Jesus a Business boy, and it was God's work he ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... gave his steed to you; To no man have I told the tale from that hour hitherto. Before the Cid and all his men you got yourself a name, How you in single combat slew a Moor—a deed of fame; And all believed in your exploit; they wist not of your shame. You are a craven at the core; tall, handsome, as you stand: How dare you talk as now you talk, you tongue without a hand? Again, Ferrando, call to mind—another tale for you— That matter of the lion; it was at ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb |
