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Vigil   /vˈɪdʒəl/   Listen
Vigil

noun
1.
A period of sleeplessness.
2.
The rite of staying awake for devotional purposes (especially on the eve of a religious festival).  Synonym: watch.
3.
A purposeful surveillance to guard or observe.  Synonym: watch.



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"Vigil" Quotes from Famous Books



... moody thought, but his ears never for an instant relaxed their vigil, their hearkening for he knew not what. At length he passed into his bedcloset, and cooled his hot face with water and repaired his dress. Coming out again, he found the house still quiet, the door as he had left it, the daylight pouring in through the aperture. ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... sentence he slipped through the gate, which was not quite closed, and entered the garden, where he crouched down in the shadow of some bushes that grew by the side of the gravel path leading to the house, and seemed to compose himself for a long vigil. ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon

... sends us the trial of loneliness, it may be that He has a special work for us, which needs a long and lonely vigil beside our armour. He may be depriving us of earthly comfort to draw us closer to Himself, that we may learn from Him to be ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby

... shrill cry of a jackal among the sandhills around us. Face to face I sat with this strange man, the glow of the fire beating upon his eager and imperious features and reflecting from his passionate eyes. It was the strangest vigil, and one which will never pass from my recollection. I have spoken with many wise and famous men upon my travels, but never with one who left ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... restlessness of my disturbing fancies. All around was spiritualized by the moonlight; the trees on the lawn threw long shadows on the grass, and far away, in their mysterious and majestic silence, stood the eternal mountains; like gigantic watchers, they kept their vigil over the placid scene beneath—the vigil of untold centuries. Cloudless, unsympathizing, changeless, they had no part in the busy drama of human experience their loftiness overlooked, and now they loomed with shadowy outline, through the sanctifying ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various

... of mind I came down for breakfast. My host, I found, was staying in bed after his night's vigil, and my hostess was daintier and more inaccessible than ever. After breakfast I reflected for a little over a pipe and then I asked her for a bit of lunch to put in my pocket and told her I was going for a long walk. She got the lunch ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston

... moment the purpose of his vigil, he was thinking of a long morning's fishing, and had turned to pick up his plaid and go off to the house for his fishing-rod, when he thought he heard the sound of dry wood snapping. He listened intently; and the next moment it came again, some way off, but ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... Spread, charming night, spread over every brow The subtle scent of thy narcotic flower, And let no wakeful hearts keep vigil now Save those enthralled by love's resistless power. More beautiful than day's most beauteous light, Thy silent shades were made ...
— Monsieur de Pourceaugnac • Moliere

... reminder was from her gentle hand. But whom? I knew not. I then observed Lo Cheng the Court Artist in attendance and immediately despatched him to make secret enquiry and ascertain the name and circumstances of that beauty who, unknown, had shared my vigil. I learnt on his return that it was the Lady A-Kuei. I had entered the Dragon Chamber in a low moonlight, and guessed not her presence. She spoke no word. Finding her Imperial Master thus absorbed, she invited no attention, ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck

... down from my look-out and steer at a guess towards my neighbor in vigil, and come upon him with outstretched hand. "Is that you?" I say to him in a subdued voice, though I ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... and travel ahead as fast as on the ground, swinging by the arms from limb to limb, sometimes a dozen feet apart, letting go and catching, never falling, never missing his grip. In fact, he seemed as much at home among the trees as on the ground; and Buck had memories of nights of vigil spent beneath trees wherein the hairy man roosted, holding on ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London

... year ago John Nepomuk's day was observed only by those who perform their devotions in secret; this year we had vigil and feast kept at top form, pilgrimages from all parts of the country, processions through the streets headed by high dignitaries of the Church, and outward and visible signs of a sincere regard for a patron saint. There was some stimulating opposition too: a band ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... brain, or all is lost. The father of his people must think for all, plan for all, encourage, restrain, cherish, discipline all. Standish for the camp, Winslow for the council, but for you, Bradford, the sleepless vigil, the constant watch, the self-forgetting energy, whose fruits are safety, honor, and prosperity, for those who lean ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... trees and brilliant flowers, the October sun shone gloriously. No fairer day ever smiled upon old earth. She stood for an instant—then turned slowly away and walked over to a mirror—had her night's vigil made her look wan and sallow? she wondered. No—she looked much as usual—a thought paler, perhaps, but it is appropriate for brides to look pale. No use thinking of a morning nap under the circumstances—she would sit down by the window and wait for ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... been the day before, Harlan Thornton would have declared to his grandfather what his intentions were toward Madeleine Presson. The thoughts of the past night's vigil came upon him now—he hesitated. He was angry with himself—angry with this blunt and persistent old man. He did not know whether resentment held him back from acknowledging that he had been a suitor for the ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... exaggeration: "In his letters to his family, Chopin, as if he wished to avoid pronouncing the name of George Sand, always calls her 'My hostess,' sometimes even employing, strange to say, the plural, for instance, 'Elles si cheres, elles rirent pour tous,' or, 'Here the vigil is sad, because les malades ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... enough by the time the four ladies had been gathered in, for their small session, at the hotel, where the windows were still open to the high balconies and the flames of the candles, behind the pink shades—disposed as for the vigil of watchers—were motionless in the air in which the season lay dead. What was presently settled among them was that Milly, who betrayed on this occasion a preference more marked than usual, should not hold herself obliged to climb that evening the social stair, however it might stretch to ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James

... hour seemed the longest he had ever spent, and several times he looked at his watch, hoping the clock a laggard. To Regina the vigil was inexpressibly trying, and sitting there three feet from her guardian, she dared not lift her gaze to the countenance that ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... truly,' Posy, as you would say, the night of October 31 is the vigil of All-saints' Day, one of the four high festivals in the Roman Catholic Church, and a day on which all Christians who hold to ancient forms commemorate the noble doings of the holy dead. But the All-hallow's ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... out now than know the horror of a living death through all the years to come. God knows best. It is up to Him. Let there be no talk of this thing again, Andrew." Abruptly he quitted the room and returned to his vigil by the side of the son who was at once the light and the shadow ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... the divan and sighed wearily. "Leave me, Melisselda. Go to thy rest; to-night I must keep vigil alone. Perchance it is ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... has now bathed, approved himself to the searching eyes of Prowess, and been accepted by Humility. After the bath, it was customary for him to spend a night in vigil; and this among the Teutons should have taken place in church, alone before the altar. But the Italian poet, after his custom, gives a suave turn to the severe discipline. His donzel passes the night in bed, attended by Discretion, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... the house, and in the dark, felt our way up to the music room. Stone put the book in the jar, and motioned for me to hide behind a sofa. He himself took up his vigil behind a window-curtain, of ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells

... In robes of watchman's fur, gives up his chair; With midnight howl to bay the affrighted moon, To walk with torches through the streets at noon; To force plain Nature from her usual way, Each night a vigil, and a blank each day; To match for speed one feather 'gainst another, To make one leg run races with his brother; 340 'Gainst all the rest to take the northern wind, Bute to ride first, and he to ride behind; To coin newfangled wagers, and to lay 'em, Laying to ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... and sat down at the foot of the door. And, with his knees drawn up into his arms, he prepared for his long vigil. It was the posting of the night sentry ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... he detected motion; then it dissolved itself into sections that moved independently of one another. Finally he could make out individual specks that whirled and danced with faintly buzzing wings and long, thread-like, dangling legs. The craneflies were keeping their yearly vigil, veiling the inner chamber from the profane ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... Italians lay and waited for their foe as they had done for weary months. Nothing happened. A few merchant ships, sailing vessels for the most part, were torpedoed, but there was no attempt by the Austrians to sink enemy warships. Italy kept up her vigil and the Austrians dozed in their strong ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... said that a Paris gamin would laugh at our fetes; and yet, if such a loyal custodian as one of the old sacristans we meet abroad, who has kept a life-vigil in a famous cathedral, or such a vigilant chronicler as was Dr. Gemmelaro, who for years noted in a diary the visitors to AEtna, and all the phenomena of the volcano,—if such a fond sentinel were to have watched, even for less than a century, and recorded the civic, military, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... on number three fell in, and Dodge stepped out to take up his vigil, Corporal Hasbrouck gave added instructions to ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock

... Heirs. Such satisfaction to them shall be denied." "Behold here Alvar Fanez," the King to him replied, "Take them by the hand and give them to the heirs, even as I Here afar off have ta ten them, as though I were hard by; And throughout all the vigil their sponsor shalt thou be. When again to me thou comest tell all the ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon

... me to commit the child to your care. I appreciate your kindness, but am too much interested in the boy to leave him when the disease is at its crisis, and a cup of coffee will strengthen me for the vigil. You have been to the Asylum this afternoon; tell me ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... up before them; she was pale from vigil, and the sunlight coming through the misty evening air fell upon her swaying arms and her dress with its curious embroidery of peacock's feathers; the dark hollows of her eyes were alight and as she spoke inspiration came to her; her voice ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... I wept if I could weep, My tears might well be shed To think I was not near, to keep One vigil o'er thy bed: To gaze, how fondly! on thy face, To fold thee in a faint embrace, Uphold thy drooping head; And show that love, however vain, Nor thou ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... took breakfast with her. She was conscious that somehow her vigil had affected his estimate of her, for his speech was frank and direct, as though he considered her now more fit ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... as the Gold Room of the Grand Babylon should need the observation of a watchful eye. Yet so it was. Strange matters and unexpected faces had been descried from the little window, and more than one European detective had kept vigil there with the most ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett

... to the girl very quickly for she was tired, and her healthy young body was swift to find repose. But the man, watching beside her, did not even doze. He scarcely varied his position throughout his vigil, scarcely glanced at the figure nestled in the long grass so close to him. But his attitude had the alertness of the man on guard, and his brown face was set in grimly resolute lines. It gave no indication whatever of that which was ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... little space deprived of flowers and life— "The house of sandal wood," said Taka, pointing, And there, the last home of a chief, it lay. White shells and snowy pebbles girt him round In his great mould of clay, and all his spears And clubs of war kept vigil, showing still His might in battle. Shrill the parrot's scream Rang on the desolation, and the trees Seemed to withdraw their shadows from the place Sacred to death, the violent crime of war. A little shadow darkened Taka's heart, Could this sweet world contain both ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay

... them. From place to place he was driven by fear, and when the calling stopped and the footsteps no longer followed, he lay for a time where he could watch the postern. A moment after he gave up the vigil there the little ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... last fought their way clear. They had then held a council of war and decided that it was best to head for the Balkans, rather than to run the gauntlet of the Austrian flying craft which kept constant vigil in the direction ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes

... cruiser began to settle. Except for the watch on deck, most of the crew were asleep, wearied by the constant vigil in bad weather, but in perfect order the officers and men rushed to quarters. The quick-firers were manned in the hope of a dying shot at the submarine, but there was ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... kept vigil in the church of Surrentum, Basil and Decius relieving her an hour before dawn. At the funeral service, which began soon after sunrise, the greater part of the townsfolk attended. All were eager to see whether the daughter of Maximus would be present, for many rumours were rife touching ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... for this rite the Omaha youth was taught the Tribal Prayer. He was to sing it during the four nights and days of his vigil in some lonely place. As he left his home, his parents put clay on his head; and, to teach him self-control, they placed a bow and arrows in his hand, with the injunction not to use them during his long fast, no matter how great ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher

... settled down to his vigil, had been alone. From over the brow of the hill, however, had come a few minutes ago a man, dressed in loose shooting clothes, and with a gun under his arm. He came to a standstill by the side of the boy, and stood there watching him for several moments, with a certain faintly ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... never have realised. All the romance which, if we may believe Cervantes, once transfigured the life of Spain, and gilded the commonest acts till they seemed confident appeals for the applause of God, feats boldly done under Heaven's thronged barriers, is nowadays concentred in this one strange vigil which all ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett

... they cried, and "Clear the way," and caught the ringing bridle-reins: "Wait! the Watch is going by, this vigil of St. John!" Merrily laughed the chapmen then, reining their great white horses back, "When the pageant passes, lad, we'll up ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... woman who filled it—a woman standing at the chimney-corner, where a gladsome fire flames, and she is garbed in reflected purple, her corsage scarlet, her face golden, as she holds to the glow those hands transparent and beautiful as flames. In the darkness, from my vigil, ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... sprained ankles it is necessary to walk with a great deal of caution, and the idea of bicycling through them is simply absurd. Nevertheless the populace turns out in high glee, and their expectations run riot as I relieve the kahvay-jee of his faithful vigil and bring forth my wheel. They want me to bin in their stuffy little bazaar, crowded with people and donkeys; mere alley-ways with scarcely a twenty yard stretch from one angle to another; the surface is a disorganized mass of holes and stones ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... action. As a matter of fact there were two reports; that of the minority was signed by two members of the committee, Judge Bromwell, whose breadth and scholarship were apparent in his able report, and a Mexican named Agapita Vigil, a legislator from Southern Colorado where Spanish is the dominant tongue. Mr. Vigil spoke no English, and was one of those representatives for whose sake an interpreter was maintained during the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... or watchmen, saw Christmas Day safe home. Another Vigil—a stout, sturdy patrol, called the Eve of ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... watches of the night the siege was raised and Phoebe, the dauntless, brilliant, arrogant Phoebe had capitulated. No love-lorn woman of the ages ever palpitated more thoroughly at the thought of her lover than did she as she kept vigil with David across ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... Her vigil, however, did not last long. In a few minutes she distinctly beheld a figure move out on to the veranda. Its identity, at that distance, she was left to conjecture. But she saw it leave the veranda and make its way round to the barn. ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... donned a black gown, and shrouded herself in a long cloak, the hood of which concealed her face. She was very pale, and there were rings around her eyes that told of weeping and of vigil. Oh, how she had prayed for Anthony, that he might be pardoned wherein he might sin, strengthened wherein he was weak, purified and enlightened in the inner man, and taught by the Holy Spirit ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green

... Where Pain keepeth vigil With Sorrow and Care, And Horror sits watching By dull-eyed Despair,— Where the Spirit accurst Maketh moan in its wo, Thy wishes direct us, And ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands

... that morning as she peered out at the major's wagon; her absence from luncheon on account, as she pleaded, of not desiring to appear when company was present; and now, despite her desire to sleep, her vigil at the third-floor landing, where she was surely listening ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King

... looked up from her reading with her finger on her lips—I recognised the gesture she had addressed me in the afternoon—and, though the nurse was about to go to rest, had not encouraged her sister-in-law to relieve her of any part of her vigil. But certainly at that time the boy's state was far from reassuring—his poor little breathing so painful; and what change could have taken place in him in those few hours that would justify Beatrice in denying Mackintosh access? This was the moral of Miss ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James

... forest-trees until they began to dance hornpipes for his special gratification, or glowered at the shadows until they became instinct with life, and all but induced him to rouse the camp twenty times in the course of his hour's vigil. True to time also, like his predecessor, Disco roused Antonio ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne

... passed and nothing had happened, they decided to abandon their vigil and return some other night. So, taking leave of one another, they separated, the rector to take a short ride to his home, Parson Dodge going a mile across the moor to the road that led him ...
— Legend Land, Volume 2 • Various

... long vigil, her head ached dreadfully the next day, and even the doctor noticed her burning cheeks and watery eyes, and feeling her rapid pulse asked if ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... was the matter with the light of his camp-fire? It had taken on a strange green luster and seemed to be waving off into the outer shadows. Duane heard no step, saw no movement; nevertheless, there was another present at that camp-fire vigil. Duane saw him. He lay there in the middle of the green brightness, prostrate, motionless, dying. Cal Bain! His features were wonderfully distinct, clearer than any cameo, more sharply outlined than ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey

... attentive and hopeful vigil, his eyes always upon Valentine's face, his hand always touching Valentine's. Already life seemed blossoming anew with an inexplicable radiance. Valentine would speak once more, would come back from this underworld ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... not until the morning of the fifth day that the constant vigil was broken. The patient fell into a natural and refreshing sleep. So Ruth found that for a while her eyes were free. She tiptoed to the stand and gathered up the manuscripts which she carried to a chair by the window. Since the discovery ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... there was heavy breathing all around, but not another sound, so feeling once more that it would be impossible to sleep, and that he might as well be on guard, Syd kept his vigil for quite five minutes, and then, as was perfectly natural, went off fast asleep again, to lie until it seemed to him that there was a crash of thunder, and then ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn

... His vigil lasted but a quarter of an hour. At twenty-five minutes to eleven, Helen Cumberly came running down the steps of the hotel and hurried toward the Strand. Like a shadow, Gianapolis, throwing away a half-smoked cigarette, glided around the corner, ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... As to the vigil he kept on the igloo, that was the result of certain suspicions regarding the occupants of that particular shelter. There was a dog team which hung about the place. These dogs were larger and sleeker than the other animals of the village. Their fights with other dogs were more frequent and severe. ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell

... and when grey dawn rises and grants me a little grace of rest, the swallows cry around and about me, and bring me back to tears, thrusting sweet slumber away: and my unclosing eyes keep vigil, and the thought of Rhodanthe returns again in my bosom. O envious chatterers, be still; it was not I who shore away Philomela's tongue; but weep for Itylus on the mountains, and sit wailing by the hoopoe's court, that we may sleep ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... lamp must be replenished; even then It will not burn so long as I must watch. My slumbers, if I slumber, are not sleep, But a continuance of enduring thought, Which then I can resist not. In my heart There is a vigil; and these eyes But ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... still kept a nightly vigil; a substitute keeper had been sent to the Point, until such time as an all-wise government could decide which of many applicants was best fitted for the place—or had the strongest pull. The First Mate was at home in the little house, ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... divide the vigil between us, Stodger; you and I shall camp right here until that costly bauble comes to light. We 'll have to keep our eyes open and our wits about us, too; I wouldn't be surprised at some tricky attempt to recover it at any ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... her island home is weeping, For what her eyes desired she shall not see; The fair young wife her widowed vigil keeping Among her babes on this side of the sea— One in their sorrow which is all too deep For comfort—theirs to sit apart ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke

... the road, lush and rank,—one solitary dead tree rising from them, with a fish-hawk's uncouth nest lumbering its black trunk; they were still as the grave; even the ill-boding bird was gone long ago, and kept no more its lonely vigil on the dead limb over wind and wave. She glanced uneasily from side to side: high up on the beach lay fragments of old wrecks; burnt spars of vessels drifted ashore to tell, in their dumb way, of captain and crew washed, in one quick moment, by this muddy water of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... rolled about on the rotten floor, and how, in desperation, he had not hesitated to use his teeth on the hand of his assailant, who had finally broken away and disappeared in the darkness. Then he told the rest of his story; of his vigil with Allan, of the loss of the money, of the capture of Travers, and finally of the arrival of the policeman on ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead

... not done its office. Now, however, her interview with the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the night of his vigil, had given her a new theme of reflection, and held up to her an object that appeared worthy of any exertion and sacrifice for its attainment. She had witnessed the intense misery beneath which the minister struggled, or, to speak more accurately, had ceased to struggle. She ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... watch—the evening's earlier half usually in the rustic summer-house in the backyard, the latter part at her bedroom window. One night after most of Westville was in bed, her long, patient vigil was rewarded by seeing the Blake automobile slip out with a single vague figure at the wheel and turn into the back streets ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... Monkey Brand, who had neither wife nor child of his own, and loved the girl with the doting passion of a nurse, wanted to share her watch, but his aid was abruptly refused. So the little jockey slept in the loft instead, to be near at hand, and would bring the girl a cup of tea after her vigil. ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant

... say "Hecker was before his time." But no man is before his time if, having a divine message, he can get but one other to accept it, can arrest men's attention, can cause them to ponder, to ask why or why not, whether this be the day or only its vigil. The sower is not before his time though he dies before the harvest; there is a time to sow and a ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... of spring are on winter's traces, The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain; And the brown bright nightingale amorous Is half assuaged for Itylus, For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces, The tongueless vigil, and all the ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum

... up my vigil. I had been the victim of a fear I was determined to conquer. The house was quiet. Maggie had retired shriveled to bed. The cat slept on ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... the end of the journey. Within the temple he placed her on their bed, taking off her stiff clothes and preparing her for sleep. Then he remade the fire, and opening a window for the low night wind to draw across her face as she liked to have it, he sat down for his vigil. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... as a spiritual conflict in which men proved themselves heroes or cowards: and he meant to be a hero. For him everything lay in the will to dare or to endure. He recalled tales of old knights keeping vigil by their arms in solitary chapels, and he questioned the far hill-tops and the stars—What substitute for faith supported him? Did he believe in God? Yes, after a fashion—in some tremendous and overruling Power, at ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... to Dr. May that George's vigil soon became a sound repose on the sofa in the dressing-room; and he was left ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... He went to look at Effie, still in profound slumber. Why awaken her? Nothing could be done; only watch. He returned to his vigil. ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... night. I took mine down on to the main deck, and hung them up to drain and dry on a hook commonly used to hook back the starboard door giving access to the poop cabins. Then, feeling exceedingly weary with my all-night vigil—for I had never been off the deck since sunset—I went to my own cabin for a few minutes and, filling the wash basin with cold fresh water, indulged in the luxury of a good wash, which had the effect of considerably refreshing ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood

... had overturned into somebody's sea-boot—we used to console each other with cheerful reminders of this accumulating fruit of our endeavours. "Think of the prize-money, my boy," we used to exclaim; "meditate upon the jingling millions that will be yours when the dreary vigil is ended;" and as by magic the unseemly mutterings of wrath would give place to purrs of pleasurable anticipation. Even we of the R.N.V.R., mere temporary face-fringes, as it were, which the razor of peace was soon to remove from the war-time visage of the Service—even we fell under the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various

... man's; the line between the eyebrows was hollowed into a furrow. The eye retained its old uneasy, sinister, sidelong glance, or at rare moments (as when Percival entered), its searching penetration and assured command; but the eyelids themselves, red and injected, as with grief or vigil, gave something haggard and wild, whether to glance or gaze. Despite the paralysis of the frame, the face, though pale and thin, showed no bodily decay. A vigour surpassing the strength of woman might still be seen in the play of the bold muscles, the firmness of the contracted lips. ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... middle of August when the southwest wind Blows after sunset through the leisuring air, And on the sky nightly the mythic hind Leads down the sullen dog star to his lair, After the feverous vigil of July, When the loud pageant of the year's high noon Passed up the ways of time to sing and part, Grief also wandered by From out the lovers and the leaves of June, And by the wizard spices of his hair I knew his heart was very Love's own heart. Deep within dreams he led me ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... rolled back and forth between the embattled hosts. Here was war indeed, upon its grandest scale and in all its infinite variety: The tireless march under burning sun, chilling frosts, and driven tempests; the lonely vigil of the picket under starless skies, the rush and roar of countless "hosts to battle driven" in the mad charge and the victorious shout that pursued the fleeing foe; the grim determination that held its line of defenses with set teeth, blood-shot eye, and strained muscle, ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... her bare little room. A coal fire sputtered and sparkled in the rusty grate, and there was a tin bucket full of coals beside the fender from which to replenish it. She was very cold, so she drew her single chair up to the blaze and held her hands over it. It was a lonesome and melancholy vigil, while the wind whistled through the branches of the trees and moaned drearily in the cracks and crannies of the old house. When were her friends coming? Perhaps something had occurred to detain them to-day. This morning such a thing would have appeared to her to be an impossibility, but now that ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Zurich and Nice swarmed with Russian secret agents, who, at orders from Azef and Rasputin, kept constant vigil upon the doings of everyone. The directors of the foreign service of our political police were Ratchkovsky in Paris, and Rataef in London. The latter posed as a Russian journalist, and usually spent his afternoons ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux

... a benediction and the very graciousness of act and word lightened Archie's vigil as all night he watched outside the ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... o'clock, and had to go on outlying picket on a terribly-high kopje, known as Flag Staff Hill, at once. So just as it became dark—tired and tea-less, with overcoats and bundles of blankets—a little band of wearied, cussing Empire builders set out on their solitary vigil, with none of your "Won't-come-home-till-morning" jollity about them. Oh, that thrice, nay seventy-times-seven, execrated hill! Up it we stumbled with a compulsory Excelsior motto, staggering, perspiring profusely, with wrenched ankles, cut and sore ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross

... him blew a cab-whistle, a hansom came up, and he drove away. Then I walked up and down in the vicinity, keeping a weary vigil; for my curiosity was now much excited. The stranger meant mischief. Of that I ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux

... leave the spot. Food was brought him daily, but it went untouched. For one whole week he lay in the wind and weather in the hole he had dug on the grave. There the children found him on the eighth morning curled up and apparently asleep. His long quest and vigil were ended, for he had reached the happy hunting grounds. Who shall say that a beloved hand and voice did not ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... ON the vigil of St. Mark, after Easter, the Crusaders having mustered at Acre, flocked on board their ships and prepared to set sail for Europe. On that day also the King of France, leaving Geoffrey de Segrines with a hundred knights to aid in the defence of what remained of the once grand ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar

... supper. Thereafter he became utterly drowsy. He had it in his mind to question this Fazir Khan about his dark sayings, but his eyes closed as if drawn by a magnet and his head nodded. It may have been something in the wine; it may have been merely the vigil of the last night, and the toil of the past hours. At any rate his mind was soon a blank, and when a servant pointed out a heap of skins in a corner, he flung himself on them and was at once asleep. He was utterly at their mercy, but his course, had he known it, was the wisest. Even ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... The colonel's vigil became frightful. The slightest sound made him tremble, in spite of his courageous nature; he asked himself whether, in case he came through this horrible situation by a miracle, he should continue the enterprise he had commenced. At first he believed that he saw, in this ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue

... the room seem vast, Caverned and empty. And her beating heart Rapped through the silence all about her cast Like some loud, dreadful death-watch taking part In this sad vigil. Slowly she undrest, Put out the light and crept into her bed. The linen sheets were fragrant, but so cold. And brimming tears she shed, Sobbing and quivering in her barren nest, Her weeping lips into the pillow prest, Her eyes sealed fast ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell

... has happened since, I still remember that vigil very distinctly: the black and silent observatory, the shadowed lantern throwing a feeble glow upon the floor in the corner, the steady ticking of the clockwork of the telescope, the little slit in the roof—an oblong profundity with the stardust streaked across it. Ogilvy moved about, invisible ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... hours of the night passed slowly. Dyke Darrel dared not sleep, and so he kept his lonely vigil beside the dead, seated in the shadows, with revolver ready to use at a ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton

... were probably too honest, however simple, to achieve a complete cure on Dugdale by an amicable understanding; so, after their year of vigil, they relinquished their task by degrees. Dugdale, weary of his illness, which now attracted little notice, attended a regular physician, and was cured of that part of his disease which was not affected in a regular way par ordonnance du medecin. But the reverend gentlemen who had taken ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... said to the boy: 'They shall praise thy zeal So long as the red spurt follows the steel. And the Russ is upon us even now? Great is thy prudence — await them, thou. Watch from the tree. Thou art young and strong, Surely thy vigil is not for long. The Russ is upon us, thy clamour ran? Surely an hour shall bring their van. Wait and watch. When the host is near, Shout aloud that ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling

... matter of business, was like enough to his brother to enter into the force of the vows they were about to make; and if the young Barons of Adlerstein did not perform the night-watch over their armour, yet they kept a vigil that impressed their own minds as deeply, and in early morn they went to confession and mass ere the gay parts of the city ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the "exploded" notion of an abnormal force might be correct. We learn that while Captain Jervis was not informed of the sounds he never heard them, and whereas Mrs. Ricketts heard violent noises after he went to bed on the night of his vigil, he heard nothing. "Several instances occurred where very loud noises were heard by one or two persons, when those equally near and in the same direction were not sensible ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang

... Mrs. Beale, who, though the hour was now late, had not yet returned to the Regent's Park, Susan Ash, in the hall, as loud as Maisie was low and as bold as she was bland, produced, on the exhibition offered under the dim vigil of the lamp that made the place a contrast to the child's recent scene of light, the half-crown that an unsophisticated cabman could pronounce to be the least he would take. It was apparently long before Mrs. Beale would arrive, and in the interval ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James

... ago. Maurice remembered very well his long vigil in the garden, and how he had prayed that he might hear one note, one only, of a night-jar, or the hoot of an owl in the forest, so that the black thought just born in his mind might be strangled, and the shadow driven ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens

... most holy Sabbath preceding the Vigil of the Passover, turned aside to a fit and pleasant place, called Feartfethin, and there, according to the custom of the holy church, lighted the lamps at the blessed fire. And it happened on that ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various

... Hermem deorum nuncium, pennis levem, Quo rege gaudent Arcades, furem boum, Hujus palestrae qui vigil custos stetit, Clam nocte tollit Aulus, et ridens ait: Praestat ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... although they could not yet put their hands upon them. That was why he listened and watched so closely, and that was why he would break his word to Paul and not waken him, keeping the nightlong vigil himself. ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... I should think the long sleep better than the agonised vigil. But men, miserable as they are, cling so to any thing like life, that they probably would prefer damnation to quiet. Besides, they think themselves so important in the creation, that nothing less can ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... patiently as she could, till she heard the bedroom door open, and then fly to make her mother a cup of tea and have a tempting little supper ready for her when she should come out, dressed and ready to go back to another exhausting vigil. ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston

... had stood guard. There was little likelihood, the friends knew, that their escape would be discovered before morning, but it had been decided that watch should be kept nevertheless, Jack had stood watch until midnight, after which Frank took up the vigil. ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake

... So the vigil began, with Buck watching Dan, and Black Bart alert, suspicious, ready at the first wrong move to leap at the ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand

... the bride who waits at home, With her lily cheeks and her violet eyes, Dreaming the sweet old dreams of love, While her lover is walking in Paradise; God strengthen her heart as the days go by, And the long, drear nights of her vigil follow, Nor bird, nor moon, nor whispering wind, May breathe the tale of the hollow; Alas! alas! The secret is safe with the ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... a cock crew. He laughed a long, low, bitter laugh, and waited. Hour after hour he waited, but the cock, for some strange reason, did not crow again. Finally, at half-past seven, the arrival of the housemaids made him give up his fearful vigil, and he stalked back to his room, thinking of his vain oath and baffled purpose. There he consulted several books of ancient chivalry, of which he was exceedingly fond, and found that, on every occasion ...
— The Canterville Ghost • Oscar Wilde

... vega, that some village wag had once referred to her as "Annie Laurie." Because of its happy absurdity the name long clung to Jane; but despite such small jests every one respected her sterling traits,—every one, that is, except Senora Vigil, who lived hard by in a mud house like a bird's nest, and who cherished a grudge against ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead

... let the writer go out for a drink." A French monk adds: "Let a pretty girl be given to the writer for his pains." Ludovico di Cherio, a famous illuminator of the fifteenth century, has this note at the end of a book upon which he had long been engaged: "Completed on the vigil of the nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, on an empty stomach." (Whether this refers to an imposed penance or fast, or whether Ludovico considered that the offering of a meek and empty stomach would be especially acceptable, ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... is completely covered with carpets of a sombre red. In the vaults, very elaborately wrought, nothing but blacks and gold: a background of black bestrewn with golden roses, and bordered with arabesques like gold lace. And from above hang thousands of gold chains supporting the vigil lamps for the evening prayers. Here and there are people on their knees, little groups in robe and turban, scattered fortuitously upon the red of the carpets, and almost lost in the midst of the ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... caught by her brothers, and once he trailed Mr. Morse down town and studied his face in the lighted streets, longing all the while for some quick danger of death to threaten so that he might spring in and save her father. On another night, his vigil was rewarded by a glimpse of Ruth through a second-story window. He saw only her head and shoulders, and her arms raised as she fixed her hair before a mirror. It was only for a moment, but it was a long moment to him, during which ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... ruthless process that uses generations of effort to build a single cell. There was a dreary parallel between her grandfather's fruitless toil and her own unprofitable sacrifice. Each in turn had kept vigil ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton

... preceding George Darrow's departure; had gone with a calm face about her usual business, and even contrived not too obviously to avoid him. Then, the next day before dawn, from behind the closed shutters where she had kept for half the night her dry-eyed vigil, she had heard him drive off to the train which brought its passengers to Paris in time for ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... the story of Kukusim, an Indian lad who is eagerly awaiting the time when he shall be a warrior. It is full of mythical lore and thrilling adventures, culminating in the mountain vigil, when Kukusim hears the spirit voices which mark the passing of his childhood. Illustrated with photographs by the author and drawings ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... affairs she would have retired also. Then she remembered that on stepping in by the casement and closing it, she had not fastened the window-shutter, so that a streak of light from the interior of the room might have revealed her vigil to an observer on the lawn. How all things conspired against her keeping ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... the very tension of the night-silence that warned him to be on the watch. It was not until long after midnight that he relaxed his straining, uneasy vigil, and stretched himself to unvexed sleep. He could steal an hour or two from the sheep in the early morning, he told himself, as he felt the sweet restfulness of slumber sweeping over him; the helpless creatures would remain on the bedding-ground long after ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... beaten, are being pressed back into Brussels by the Allies. They may let us go. No, the Germans, maddened by defeat, might order us all to be shot," was one idea. "How does it feel to be blindfolded and stood up against a wall by a firing squad?" was another pleasant companion idea that kept vigil with me through the midnight hours. Then my fancies took a frenzied turn, "Suppose these be brutes of soldiers and they run us through, saying we were trying ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams

... desert; and a vast horizon comes into relief, broken by a huge shape which soon reveals itself in the spreading radiance as a Sphinx pedestalled on the sands. The light still clears, until the upraised eyes of the image are distinguished looking straight forward and upward in infinite fearless vigil, and a mass of color between its great paws defines itself as a heap of red poppies on which a girl lies motionless, her silken vest heaving gently and regularly with the breathing of a dreamless sleeper, and her braided hair glittering in a shaft ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw

... breeze that expanded my lungs as I sat on the rocks did me a great deal of good. It rested me after the dreary vigil and presently I returned to my patient. I'm afraid that we men are poor nurses. We can keep on fighting and struggling and trying, but when we have to sit still and watch with folded arms the iron enters our souls, while the consciousness of helpless waiting is after all the ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... saint Look living in the moon; and as you turn Backward and forward, to the echoes faint Of your own footsteps—voices from the urn Appear to wake, and shadows wild and quaint Start from the frames which fence their aspects stern, As if to ask how you can dare to keep A vigil there, where all but death should sleep." Don ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... soul, and the thing. A chaplain in Congress: after we took down that bitter Mason—and—Slidell pill, it was. Prayed to Jesus to keep us safe until our vengeance on England was ripe,—to 'aid us through the patient watch and vigil long of him who treasures up a wrong.' Old boy, thinks I, if that's Christianity, it's cheap. I'll take stock in it. Going at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... no sooner conceived than put into operation. Selecting the most comfortable-looking boulder I could see, I scrambled on to the top of it, and, with my cloak drawn tightly over my back and shoulders, commenced my vigil. The cold mountain air, sweet with the perfume of gorse and heather, intoxicated me, and I gradually sank into a heavenly torpor, from which I was abruptly aroused by a dull boom, that I at once associated with distant musketry. All was then still, still as the grave, and, on glancing at the watch ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell

... night she knew, Some whisper heard, from heaven descended, And peacefully as falls the dew Her long and lonely vigil ended. ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... Mid-Surrey, Walton Heath, Garden City, and the Engineers' Club at Roslyn, L. I., when the light ceased to shine through the crack under the door, and he awoke with a sense of dull incredulity to the realisation that the occupants of the drawing-room had called it a day and that his vigil was over. ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... My vigil that night was a long one. I managed to creep up through the grounds and peer through the wooden shutters into the fine, well-furnished salon of the palazzo. It was unoccupied, but upon a table on the opposite side of the room stood the Silver Spider, the strange but exquisite mascot of the ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux

... when the dark night wraps the graveyard around, With only the dead in their vigil to see; Break not my repose or the mystery profound, And perchance thou mayst hear a sad hymn resound; 'Tis I, O my country, raising ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... all those effects which can result from the local movement of bodies here below, except he be restrained by the Divine power. Now the representation of forms to the imagination is due, sometimes, to local movement: for the Philosopher says (De Somno et Vigil.) [*De Insomn. iii, iv.] that "when an animal sleeps, the blood descends in abundance to the sensitive principle, and the movements descend with it, viz. the impressions left by the action of sensible objects, which impressions are preserved ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... was exhausted by stress of feeling and the long vigil, but the iron, icy hand that had clasped her .heart so long did not for a moment relax its hold. She went to the window and looked out. Stars were paling, the mysterious East had trembled; soon it ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed

... I had so long a vigil?" he asked, and the cold, strained tone, the half-averted eyes, the pallor of his face, all struck her at once. Instantly ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King

... tasks. Gun crews on continuous duty, ever ready with the shot that might save the ship; the black men below in the fire room, expecting every moment to receive the fatal blast which would entrap them in a hideous death; the watch, ceaseless in its vigil by day and by night, peering through the darkness and the mist, conscious that upon their alertness depended the lives of all. Yet under these conditions of unprecedented hardships every black man performed his duty with the highest degree of ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller



Words linked to "Vigil" :   watch, vigil candle, agrypnia, faith, religious rite, spying, listening watch, religious belief, wakefulness, wake, surveillance, rite, religion, continuous receiver watch, viewing



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