"Yearn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me."[12] His conscience, however, tells him that inasmuch as there is such a thing as eternal justice, a time will come when the truth will be proclaimed and his honour fully vindicated; Shaddai will then yearn for the work of His hands, but it will be too late, "For now I must lay myself down in the dust; and Thou shalt seek me, but I shall not be." And it is to this conviction, not to a belief in future retribution, ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... the darkness with tumult, his mother had brought him into the world. Love of it was in his blood, a part of his soul, and there were times when he yearned for this "talk of the mountains" as others yearn for the coming of spring. He welcomed it now as his eyes sought through the darkness for a glimmer of the light that always burned from dusk until ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... Elizabeth Farnshaw's nature and that the girl yearned toward a high ideal of family life. She had shown it in her girlish chatter as they had sewed together. Could she attain to it? Susan Hornby thought of John Hunter and stiffened. She felt that Elizabeth would yearn toward it all the days of her life with him and never catch even ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... savage virtue, justification of what one has in one's self, whatever it is, is demanded. Negative qualities, even deficiencies, would be a relief. Singleness and normal simplicity and separation, amid this more and more complex, more and more artificialized state of society—how pensively we yearn for them! how ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... his eyes. "There will be the exhaustingly up-to-date young women who will ask me if I have seen San Toy; a less progressive grade who will yearn to hear about the Diamond Jubilee—the historic event, not the horse. With a little encouragement, they will inquire if I saw the Allies march into Paris. Why are women so fond of raking up the past? They're as bad as tailors, who invariably ...
— Reginald • Saki
... survivor of the illustrious house of Valois had existed in obscurity and poverty among the mountains and precipices of the inhospitable province of Auvergne, apparently forgetting for a time that world by which she had been so readily forgotten; but Marguerite began at length to yearn for a restoration of her privileges as a member of the great human family. She could not have chosen a more judicious moment in which to hazard so extreme a step; as in addition to the respect which, despite all her vices, she could still ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... I'll gladly follow." / Straightway forth they went. To those who offered ransom / the answer then was sent, Their gold no one desired / which they would give before. The warriors battle-weary / dear friends did yearn ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... with a lover's eye; And yet your Christ is mine—a Christian I! The healing, cleansing flood o'er me shall flow, I would efface the stain from birth I owe; I would be pure—my sealed eyes would see! The birthright Adam lost restored to me This, this, the unfading crown! For this I yearn, For that exhaustless fount I thirst, I burn. Then, since my heart is true, Nearchus, say— Shall I not grant to ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... that ever the Lord did thus yearn in his bowels for and after any self-righteous man? No, no; they are the publicans and harlots, idolaters and Jerusalem sinners, for whom his bowels thus yearn and tumble about within him: for, alas! poor worms, they ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... of joy and gratitude! The very walls of the house seemed to ring with it as a harp rings with music. A special train, too! he would not let the mother yearn ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... Nor looks on the haunts it loved before. But why should the bodiless soul be sent Far off, to a long, long banishment? Talk not of the light and the living green! It will pine for the dear familiar scene; It will yearn, in that strange bright world, to behold The rock and the stream ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... that I had no more delight in my security. I began to suffer and to yearn. And then, little by little, I began to see that it is love after all which binds us together, and which draws us to God; but my difficulty is this, that I still believe that my faith is true; and if that is true, then other faiths cannot be true also, and then I fall into ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... or the other. It is my too redundant energy that is slowly—or perhaps rapidly—wearing me away, because I can apply it to no use. The object, which I am bound to consider my only one on earth, fails me utterly. The sacrifice which I yearn to make of myself, my hopes, my everything, is coldly put aside. Nothing is left for me but to brood, brood, brood, all day, all night, in unprofitable longings ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... there in this military life for which you yearn that can yield you more food for healthful excitement and stirring adventure than your ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of mud mournfully reflecting bars of electric light from either side of the street. As my cab splashed wearily up the Rue Lafayette I thought that I had never seen such a picture of desolation. And yet it were better, perhaps, to remember Paris thus, than to yearn through the long Arctic night for the pleasant hours I had learned to love so well here in leafy June. Bright days of sunshine and pleasure in and around the "Ville Lumiere!" cool, starlit nights at Armenonville and Saint Cloud! Should ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... kissed him fondly, "for we are not going away again just yet. You will stay and dine with me—I have given the necessary orders. You must be quite sick of the monotonous hotel meals. For my part, I simply yearn to eat at my own ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... about and contrived to fall in with Jacintha; he told her his grief. She assured him the simple fact was their mourning was worn out, and they were ashamed to go abroad in colors. This revelation made his heart yearn still more. ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... my legs are shaggy like the legs of a goat. Look at them well, O Maiden, and know that they are indeed the legs of a beast and then you will not be afraid any more. Do you not love beasts? Surely you should love them for they yearn to you humbly or fiercely, craving your hand upon their heads as I do. If I were not fashioned thus I would not come to you because I would not need you. Man is a god and a brute. He aspires to the stars with his head ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... but death can free them; which cling closer than his sacerdotal sanctimony to a priest; which feed on the intellect like a worm, sapping energy, hope, creative power, all that makes a man higher than a beast—leaving only the power to yearn, to regret, and to sink lower ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... mighty river rolled between them there. What could the mountain do but gaze and burn? What could the meadow do but look and yearn, And gem its ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... when seated on my knees you lulled me with the charm of your words, I believed you. I wished to bind myself to a burning iron bar; weariness preys upon me and devours me. I feel a maddening desire to recover life. Is it Paris that produces this effect upon me? I always yearn to be in places where I am not. I live here to a complete solitude. I ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... discouraged house-breaker plodded, heavy footed, the unending road. Did vain compunction stir his youthful breast? Did he regret the safe respectability of the plumber's apprentice? Or, if he had not been a plumber's apprentice did he yearn to once again assume the unharried peace of whatever legitimate calling had been his before he bent his steps upon the broad boulevard of sin? ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... that bloom but once in a hundred years, but here in this tomb had blossomed one of those marvellous flowers that bloom but once throughout eternity. Poets and kings in after-times, O men of Verona, will yearn to have seen what you look upon to-day. For you, you thick and greasy citizens, are chosen out of all time to behold this beauty. There were once in the world thousands of men and women who had heard the very words of Christ as they fell from His lips, words that we may only read. ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... comprehensive statement as to the Italian programme. Of course he desired in the end to exchange Dalmatia—the seizure of which would entail a war with Yugoslavia—against Rieka. But as Italian public opinion had scarcely thought of Rieka during the War, he made it his business to cause them to yearn for that town. His compatriots were asking why Mr. Wilson's Fourteen Points should be waived for France in the Sarre Basin, for Britain in Ireland and Egypt, but not for them. And some of his would-be ingenious compatriots ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... to the new wine, which presently we shall drink pure. Meanwhile, the saddest thing is the impossibility (which I, for one, feel) to sympathise, to go along with, the people to whom and to whose cause all my natural sympathies yearn. The word 'Liberty' ceases to make me thrill, as at something great and unmistakable, as, for instance, the other great words Truth, and Justice; do. The salt has lost its savour, the meaning has escaped from the term; we know nothing of what people will do when they aspire to Liberty. The holiness ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... help of anyone else,' said she. 'Babies perish in my arms and wither at my breast. I cannot touch it, much as I yearn to. But let me see its face; perhaps I can tell you what ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... lifted up his eyes, and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother's son, and said: "Is this your younger brother, of whom ye spake unto me?" And he said, "God be gracious unto thee, my son." And Joseph made haste; for his bowels did yearn upon his brother; and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and wept there. And he washed his face, and went out, and refrained himself, and said, "Set on bread." And they set on for him by himself, and for them by themselves, and for the Egyptians, ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... the great function of the heart and breath. Ah, the aspiration, the aspiration, like a hope, like a yearning constant and unfailing with which we take in breath. When we breathe, when we take in breath, it is not as when we take in food. When we breathe in we aspire, we yearn towards the heaven of air and light. And when the heart dilates to draw in the stream of dark blood, it opens its arms as to a beloved. It dilates with reverent joy, as a host opening his doors to an honored guest, whom he delights to serve: opening ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... is your desire to observe the Red Indian of the Plains engaged in his tribal sports and pastimes wait for the Wild West Show; there is sure to be one coming to your town before the season is over. Or if you are bloodthirsty by nature and yearn to see him prancing round upon the warpath, destroying the hated paleface and strewing the soil with his shredded fragments, restrain your longings until next fall and then arrange to take in the football game between Carlisle and Princeton. But, whatever you ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... evenings must be highly diverting, I can imagine you reading a few lines for him to expound, then him reading a few for you to explain, then both gazing into space with "the infinite cry of finite hearts that yearn!" ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... like Andy. He might occasionally seem to yearn to break loose, and take a wild flight, but on second sober thought he nearly always came back to his ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... the breast Where a God yearn'd to cling; Drink-hael! so Jesu press'd Life from its mystic spring; Then hush and bend in reverent sign And breathe the thrilling reeds ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... open road I have a springtime longing; I yearn to leave my town abode, the jostling and the thronging, and tread again the quiet lanes, among the woodland creatures; where birds are singing joyous strains to beat the music teachers. Afar from honks of motor cars, and all the city's clamor, I'd like to sleep beneath the ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... famine, and lived simply all the days of your life. And there are many things, indeed not simple, which you do not know and cannot come to understand. You do not know what it is to long for the fleshpots afar, you cannot understand what it is to yearn for a fair woman's face. And the woman is fair, Thom, the woman is nobly fair. You have been woman to this man, and you have been your all, but your all is very little, very simple. Too little and ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... loves me; but"—and Hilda's brow grew dark, and her eyes flashed as she spoke—"there are other reasons, deeper than all this—reasons which I will not divulge even to you, but which yet are sufficient to make me long and yearn and crave for some opportunity to bring down her proud head ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... go visit Nelly, and 'gad, my limbs yearn for bed, Joe. This fellow can still carry the bag; ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... he returned pithily; "a gun is a good enough fellow to deserve Christian burial. Carew, do you ever yearn for ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... campaign document, the aspect under which it has been most hotly discussed in Italy. It has been accepted as the platform, or even the gospel of the Christian Democrats. Who are they? They are a body of the younger generation of Italians, among them being a considerable number of religious, who yearn to put into practice the concrete exhortations of the Evangelists. They are really carried forward by that ethical wave which has swept over Western Europe and America during the past generation, and has resulted in "slumming," in practical social ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... hills of Habersham, And oh! not the valleys of Hall Avail; I am fain for to water the plain. Downward the voices of Duty call; Downward to toil and be mixed with the main. The dry fields burn and the mills are to turn, And a myriad flowers mortally yearn, And the lordly main from beyond the plain Calls o'er the hills of Habersham, Calls through the valleys ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... Things uncontained in, seemingly, The open book upon thy knee, And through the quiet woodlands hear Sounds full of mystery to ear Of grosser mould—the myriad cries That from the teeming world arise; Which we, self-confidently wise, Pass by unheeding. Thou didst yearn From thy weak babyhood to learn Arcana of creation; turn Thy eyes on things intangible To mortals; when the earth was still. Hear dreamy voices ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... should demand from him this sham of Divine Omnipotence, is utterly incomprehensible. But so it is; and these solutions are legitimate inasmuch as they satisfy the desire for finality, for which our hearts yearn with a longing greater than the longing for the loaves and fishes of this earth. Perhaps the only true desire of mankind, coming thus to light in its hours of leisure, is to be set at rest. One is never set at rest by Mr. Henry James's novels. ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... seems a mere freak of nature and may chance to be angel, criminal, total insipidity, virago or enchanter, but let such an one enter a room or appear in the street, and heads must turn, eyes light and follow, souls yearn or envy, or sink under the discouragement of comparison. With the complete harmony and perfect balance of the singular thing, it would be folly for the rest of the world to compete. A human being who had lived ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... "I yearn to tell you, if only I can trust you;" and Lucy knelt down at the feet of Mrs. Robarts, looking up into her face and smiling through the remaining drops of her tears. "I would fain tell you, but I ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... to set before a sorcerer. I would as lief eat bill-poster's paste a year old. It tastes like a sour, acid custard. Yet white men learn to eat it, even to yearn for it. Captain Capriata, of the schooner Roberta, which occasionally made port in Atuona Bay, could digest little else. Give him a bowl of popoi and a stewed or roasted cat, and his Corsican heart warmed ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... used to sing in church. We yearn to be satisfied and yet we know because we are not satisfied ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... the sex we see Doth sleep with such profound tranquillity: But yet this Fable seems to let us know That very often Hymen's blisses sweet, Altho' some tedious obstacles they meet, Are not less happy for approaching slow. 'Tis nature's way that ladies fair Should yearn conjugal joys to share; And so I've not the heart to preach A ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... swarm naturally. They sense this generosity, this non-protective attitude from afar. A girl like Jennie is like a comfortable fire to the average masculine mind; they gravitate to it, seek its sympathy, yearn to possess it. Hence she was annoyed by many ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... St. John, "are restless, and will make each experiment in their power, though vanity be the result of all. Disappointed in love, they yearn towards ambition; and the object of ambition, unlike that of love, never being wholly possessed, ambition is the more durable passion of the two. But sooner or later even that and all passions are sated at ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... gold never can buy to yearn and to cry for; There's a hope that's as old as the sky to suffer and sigh for; There's a faith that out-dazzles the sun to martyr ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... not until he had been absent more than a year that Mrs. Purling appeared to relent. She began to yearn after her son; she missed him and was disposed to be reconciled, provided he would but meet her half-way. At first she sent olive-branches in the shape of munificent letters of credit over and above his liberal allowance; then came more distinct ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... altars are already piled. To merit such regard from all below, All things the young immortal ought to know.' No sooner had the Thund'rer ended, Than each his godlike plan commended; Nor did the boy too little yearn His lesson infinite to learn. Said fiery Mars, 'I take the part To make him master of the art Whereby so many heroes high Have won the honours of the sky.' 'To teach him music be my care,' Apollo said, the wise and fair; 'And mine,' that mighty god replied, In the Nemaean lion's hide, 'To ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... but Sophy could not follow her far beyond her own old rocking-chair. As for her father, she had made him afraid of her, not for his sake, but for her own. Sometimes she would seem, to be fond of him, and the parent's heart would yearn within him as she twined her supple arms about him; and then some look she gave him, some half-articulated expression, would turn his cheek pale and almost make him shiver, and he would say kindly, "Now go, Elsie, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... sound policy pleads for, But, subject to that, human sympathies yearn To aid the child-victim the woman's heart bleeds for, For whom a man's breast with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various
... home! With heart and soul we yearn To find the long-lost pathway, and return!... The child's shout lifted from the questing band Of old folk, faring weary, hand in hand, But faces brightening, as if clouds at last Were showering sunshine ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... Deportment towards her, he concluded that the Man was a jealous Husband, and that the Lady was an Inconstant, and had defil'd his Bed: But when he reflected, that the Woman was a perfect Beauty, and to his thinking something like the unfortunate Astarte, he perceiv'd his Heart yearn with Compassion towards the Lady, and swell with Indignation against her Tyrant. For Heaven's sake, Sir, assist me, said she, to Zadig, sobbing as if her Heart would break, Oh! deliver me out of the Hands of this Barbarian: Save, Sir, O save my Life. Upon these her shocking Outcries, Zadig ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... have the yearn to convey the right understand'; but he look so glad to give the welcome, and his war clothes so grand, the feeble fell on my heart. I ...
— Mr. Bamboo and the Honorable Little God - A Christmas Story • Fannie C. Macaulay
... is formed for society. The human heart, properly organised, seeks communion with the human heart; and the mind, especially when refined and polished by education, loves the intercourse of social life, and, when deprived of it, will always yearn ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... treatment of these ideas is purely, broadly human, on a level with that of the sculpture of Pheidias. Titian's Virgin received into Heaven, soaring midway between the archangel who descends to crown her and the apostles who yearn to follow her, is far less a Madonna Assunta than the apotheosis of humanity conceived as a radiant mother. Throughout the picture there is nothing ascetic, nothing mystic, nothing devotional. Nor did the art of the Renaissance stop ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... on many of its ships. There would be monumental frustration. Junior officers, in particular, would have examined the low-power overdrive tables, and would have studied longingly the reports of Bors's use of low-power overdrive against an enemy squadron off Meriden. They would yearn passionately to have their ships equipped with apparatus by which it could vanish from a place where it was a target to reappear elsewhere, unharmed, and make the enemy its target. Two fleets equipped with the new device might checkmate each other. ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... my gaze upon a twig full of your autumn (bloom). What time the frost is pure, a new dream steals o'er me, as by the paper screen I rest. When cold holdeth the park, and the sun's rays do slant, I long and yearn for you, old friends. I too differ from others in this world, for my own tastes resemble those of yours. The vernal winds do not hinder the peach tree and the pear from bursting ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... them, Ben," said Bonnet, speaking without anger. "The more you talk about my sins the more I long to do them all over again; the more you say about my vanity and pride, the more I yearn to wear my uniform and wave my naked sword. Ay, to bring it down with blood upon its blade. I am very wicked, Greenway; you never would admit it and you do not admit it now, but I am wicked, and I could prove it to you if fortune ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... my lord, and speaking vulgarly in turn, this belly o' mine lacketh, these my bowels do yearn consumedly unto messes ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... to visit us—he's the gent that introduced me over the phone—when Ralph comes out, he'd like to see a fat bank account and talk woozy stuff of safety margins, earned increments and that crazy rot, but I yearn to show him a going concern, a likeable thing, ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... Temple from Grosvenor Street, as everybody knows), where he just had the pleasure of peeping upwards at Miss Amory's pink window-curtains, having achieved which satisfactory feat, he drove off to Pen's chambers. Why did he want to see his dear friend Pen so much? Why did he yearn and long after him; and did it seem necessary to Foker's very existence that he should see Pen that morning, having parted with him in perfect health on the night previous? Pen had lived two years in London, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of no modification. Entire supremacy over both body and soul, or total annihilation of their power. May the time speedily come when they shall spurn their oppressors, and trample their yoke in the dust, as their transatlantic brethren will ultimately do. Oh, Florry, does not your heart yearn toward benighted Italy? Italy, once so beautiful and noble—once the acknowledged mistress of the world, as she sat in royal magnificence enthroned on her seven hills; now a miserable waste, divided between petty sovereigns, and a ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... love?' said she. 'This would be no happiness to my child, who is a mortal and a woman, and who will yearn for a closer and a dearer thing than the love of goodness alone; erring creatures cannot love perfection as their daily food. Beautiful spirit, thou art fitted for heaven, not earth, for an angel, but not ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... had had in them the quality of inward mirth and satisfaction which is most irritating, and behind his pretended remorse she could see a pleasure over her dilemma which made her yearn to inflict punishment upon him that would cause him to ask for mercy. His demeanor had said plainly that if she wished to have the marriage set aside all well and good—he would offer no objection. But neither would he take the initiative. Decidedly, ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... When you realise what you've let yourself in for you'll break loose, suddenly—like that." He threw out his arms as if he burst bonds asunder. "You can't help yourself. You simply can't live the life. You may yearn for it, but you can't ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... had little time to think of the strange loneliness of his existence; nor is it probable that he missed that companionship of others of his own age of which, never having had experience in it, he could scarce be expected to regret or yearn for. ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... for years—perhaps as many as six or seven years—been distracting him, by unconsciously setting itself to yearn for somebody wanting, he scarcely knew whom. Echoes of himself, though rarely, he now and then found. Sometimes they were men, sometimes women, his cousin Adelaide being one of these; for in spite of a fashion which pervades the whole community at the present day—the habit of exclaiming that woman ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... Stand at thy chosen post. Faith's sentinel: Though Hell's lost legions ring thee round with fire, Learn to endure. Dark vigil hours shall tire Thy wakeful eyes; regrets thy bosom thrill; Slow years thy loveless flower of youth shall kill; Yea, thou shalt yearn for lute and wanton lyre. Yet is thy guerdon great; thine the reward Of those elect, who, scorning Circe's lure, Grown early wise, make living light their lord. Clothed with celestial steel, these walk secure, Masters, not slaves. Over their heads the pure Heavens bow, ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... yourself, if you should yearn for blest tobacco's medium In those long waits between the Acts to while away the tedium, And find you're out of cigarettes, remember that to sell any A minute past the fatal hour is counted as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 10th, 1920 • Various
... yourself, Whenever I have asked this very boon, Now asked again: for see you not, dear love, That such a mood as that, which lately gloomed Your fancy when ye saw me following you, Must make me fear still more you are not mine, Must make me yearn still more to prove you mine, And make me wish still more to learn this charm Of woven paces and of waving hands, As proof of trust. O Merlin, teach it me. The charm so taught will charm us both to rest. For, grant me ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... Light, oh Comforter, but there Alas! and but to them art Thou revealed And not to us, not everywhere Where drooping souls for comfort have appealed! I yearn for day that never breaks; Oh shine, before this eye is wholly sealed, Which weeps ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... that such and such books are necessary to perfect culture, when we know all the while that, even if they went without sleep, they could hardly cover such an immense range of study? Many men and women yearn after the higher mental life and are eager for guidance; but their yearnings are apt to be frozen into the stupor of despair if we raise before them a standard which is hopelessly unattainable by them. I should not dream ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... are not spectacular, they do not attract much attention, but they are the things that make up life; and if we are true in these little things, God will trust us with some greater things by and by. It is not wrong to yearn to do more; but that longing works evil if, in our reaching forward to greater opportunities, we neglect what opportunities we have. It is the fruits we are able to produce, not their blossoms, ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... too, lurking behind a little group of brethren of the spirit: in life unknown; in death beloved. There was Mozart the beautiful; Beethoven, of lion-mien; Schumann, Schubert, Wagner the tempestuous, and the melancholy Pole. But none of them approached him closely, yearn as he might for welcome from them, his familiars. Nor did Sophia's sweet ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... lay another woman, thinking also of this convict behind the prison bars. But this was a woman of another and a nobler mold. Into the heart of Catharine Knollys there came no mere mad selfishness of desire, yearn though she did in every fiber of her being since that first time she felt the mastering kiss of love. There was born in her soul emotion of a higher sort. The Lady Catharine Knollys prayed, and her prayer was not that her lover should ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... school in order to enter business. By a very natural psychological paradox, there seems to be a fascination about commerce and finance for many young people who have little aptitude for these vocations. Many people, feeling their deficiencies, yearn to convince themselves and others that they are not deficient. It is only another phase of the fatality with which a Venus longs to be a Diana and a Minerva a Psyche. Thousands enter business who have no commercial or financial ability. ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... fare thee farewell, Vain world, with thy tempting and glamorous spell! Thy wiles shall no longer my spirit enslave, Thy splendor and joy are designed for the grave I yearn for the solace from sorrows and ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... to the dregs, "sup full of horrors" [Macbeth]. sit on thorns, be on pins and needles, wince, fret, chafe, worry oneself, be in a taking, fret and fume; take on, take to heart; cark[obs3]. grieve; mourn &c. (lament) 839; yearn, repine, pine, droop, languish, sink; give way; despair &c. 859; break one's heart; weigh upon the heart &c. (inflict pain) 830. Adj. in pain, in a state of pain, full of pain &c. n.; suffering &c. v.; pained, afflicted, worried, displeased &c. 830; aching, griped, sore &c. (physical ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... are carolling forth their evening hymns of praise, and Nature seems to be parading its loveliness. But her face is sorrowful still, and she shakes her head dejectedly. "It is of no avail," she murmurs; "even here in such a scene I cannot obtain my heart's desire! I yearn more for it day by day, and yet with the crushing longing within my breast I seem further away than ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... was getting out an edition of his speeches in thirty-seven volumes. He was, accordingly, quite indifferent upon the Franking privilege, since it was certain that no constituent who read one of the speeches in the book would ever yearn to read another in a newspaper, and since no constituent would ever survive the reading of the entire series ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... tall, good-looking, well educated; she had abundance of tact, accomplishments, and refinement; she had never given her parents a moment of anxiety. What, then, was wrong with her from her father's point of view? He was well into middle age; increasing years made him yearn for the love of which his life had been starved; this craving would have been appeased by love for his daughter, but the truth was that he was repelled by the girl's perfection. She had never been known to lose her temper; not once had she shown the ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... bestowed upon them, two kinds of actions and two aims. Therefore all things are in twos, the one opposite to the other. But ye, my children, ye shall not be double, pursuing both goodness and wickedness. Ye shall cling only to the ways of goodness, for the Lord taketh delight in them, and men yearn after them. And flee from wickedness, for thus you will destroy the evil inclination. Heed well the commands of the Lord, by following truth with a single mind. Observe the law of the Lord, and have not the same care for wicked things as for good things. Rather keep your ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... on at Maceo, and she sez it is as bad as at Monte Carlo. (I didn't know who he wuz, but spozed that he wuz a real out and out gambler and blackleg). And sez she, "Oh, how bad it makes me feel to see such wickedness carried on. How it makes my heart yearn for my own dear America!" Miss Meechim is good in some things; she is as loyal to her own country as a dog to a root, ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... democratic America, where every man has to earn his living or marry rich, people will scorn my high-born love of the fox-chase, and speak in a slighting manner of my wild, wild yearn for the rush and scamper of the hunt. By Jove, but it is joy indeed to gallop over the sward and the cover, and the open land, the meet and the cucumber vines of the Plebian farmer, to run over the wife of the peasant and tramp her low, coarse children into the ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... prince nor pope, and I don't seek a window on men's souls. In fact, I yearn for a greater tolerance, an easy-goingness about each other's attitudes and ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... in all that line of flame, one soul that would not rise, To seize the Victor's wreath of blood, tho' Death must give the prize— There's not in all this anxious crowd that throngs the ancient Town, A maid who does not yearn for power to ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... let us have the key of that music-shed of yours for a quiet game; a modest bank—a dozen candles or so. It would be greatly appreciated by your clients, as far as I can judge from the way they betted on a game of ecarte I had with that fair, baby-faced man—what's his name? They just yearn for a modest bank. And I am afraid Martin here would take it badly if you objected; but of course you won't. Think of the calls ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... cost of daily bitterness had he been able to resist her endeavours to draw him from his path. A face—that of a woman with soft eyes, full of helpfulness, shone through the mist of his dream—the face of a woman who would one day come to him out of the Future with outstretched hands that he would yearn to clasp. ...
— The Philosopher's Joke • Jerome K. Jerome
... ingrained trust that the scenes of dignity, opulence, and wisdom, set forth in these superficial letters, are not unsettling your intellect and causing you to yearn for a ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... blooms the rose and the woodbine waves on high, And oak and elm and bracken frond enrich the rolling lea, And winds as if from Arcady breathe joy as they go by, Yet I yearn and I pine ...
— Songs, Sonnets & Miscellaneous Poems • Thomas Runciman
... Looks Godward, past the shades where blind men grope Round the dark door that prayers nor dreams can ope, And makes for joy the very darkness dear That gives her wide wings play; nor dreams that fear At noon may rise and pierce the heart of hope. Then, when the soul leaves off to dream and yearn, May truth first purge her eyesight to discern What once being known leaves time no power to appal; Till youth at last, ere yet youth be not, learn The kind wise word that falls from years that fall— "Hope thou not much, and ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... surprise when one after the other, two tenders should reach the quay without me; and if the Gilded Rose had not been so sweet, her youthful cocksureness would have made me yearn to slap her. In spite of all, however, the girl's excitement became contagious as passengers crowded down the gangway and Rechid Bey ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... plumb fed up with sagebrush and scenery. I kinder yearn for co'n bread and ham. I sure would give six bits for a drink of real wet water. Yore sentiments are ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... in the distance. After gazin' silently for a minute he turned to me and sez, "Didn't you bring any nut cakes with you? I'd like one to eat whilst I think of another Island far more beautiful than this, where I yearn ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... refusal of all such requests on the part of his scapegrace offspring. Haubitz junior took patience for another year, and then, in a moment of extreme disgust and ennui, threw up his commission and returned to Europe, trusting, he told me, that after five years' absence, the governor's bowels would yearn towards his youngest-born. In this he was entirely mistaken; he greatly underrated the toughness of paternal viscera. Far from killing the fatted calf on the prodigal's return, the incensed old Hollander refused him the smallest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... us in the golden speech of those endowed with hearing to catch its echoes! What harmony of beatitude is taught by the mystery of heavenly colour! How dull must be our faculties, or how distant the bliss for which our souls yearn as from behind a lattice, seeing only as in a mirror of burnished silver, which, though it be never so bright, reflects but dimly! How unutterable are our transitory ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... gave in a lowered voice instructions to be borne to Captain Powell. Then the one knight mounted to the room where Drake awaited him, and the other went, guarded, through the tropic morn to the fevered and the restless, who yearned for him as the sick may yearn, and to the hut where Arden strove to restrain Robin-a-dale's ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... her radiance had begun. Or lest a wrong I say, not she withdrew, But the loud stream of men day after day And great dust columns of the common way Between them grew and grew: And he and she for evermore might yearn, But to the spring the rivulets not return Nor to the bosom ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... forgotten her standing there in the snow with her baby hidden under her shawl, and her sweet thin face raised to his? Had he ever ceased to love her and yearn for her when his anger was most bitter against her? Surely the demons must have leagued together to keep possession of his soul, or he would never have so hardened himself against her! He had taken her boy from her; he had tempted his ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... with courage, Olive Rothesay prepared to live her appointed life. At first it seemed very bitter, as must needs be. Youth, while it is still youth, cannot at once and altogether be content to resign love. It will yearn for that tie which Heaven ordained to make its nature's completeness; it will shrink before the long dull vista of a solitary, aimless existence. Sometimes, wildly as she struggled against such thoughts, there would come to Olive's fancy dreams ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... and this was his first long expedition. Oftentimes, when sleeping under the trees and gazing dreamily up through the branches at the stars, had he thought of home, until his longing heart began to yearn to return. He repelled such tender feelings, however, when they became too strong, deeming them unmanly, and sought to turn his mind to the excitements of the chase; but latterly his efforts were in vain. He became thoroughly ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... penknives with white handles, A bunch of quills, and pound of candles, A lexicon compiled by COLE, A pewter spoon, and earthen bowl, A hammer, and two homespun towels, For which I yearn with tender bowels, Since I no longer can control them, I leave to those ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... chilluns, w'ich yo' ma make Mars John strop you, hit make my mine run back to ole Brer B'ar. Ole Brer B'ar, he got de swell-headedness hisse'f, en ef der wuz enny swinkin', hit swunk too late fer ter he'p ole Brer B'ar. Leas'ways dat's w'at dey tells me, en I ain't never yearn it 'sputed." ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... knight—to me is given Such hope, I know not fear; I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven That often meet me here. I muse on joy that will not cease, Pure spaces cloth'd in living beams, Pure lilies of eternal peace, Whose odours haunt my dreams; And, stricken by an angel's hand, ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... is small, and I falter in the work of their maintenance in the interest of a people for whom they are too good. Seeing that we are immune to none of the evils besetting monarchies, excepting those for which we secretly yearn; that inequality of fortune and unjust allotment of honors are as conspicuous among us as elsewhere; that the tyranny of individuals is as intolerable, and that of the public more so; that the law's majesty is a dream and its failure a ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... when the inevitable moment came he repeated the first three notes. Again Joseph heard the warbling water, and it seemed to him that he could hear the stars throbbing. It was one of those moments when the soul of man seems to break, to yearn for that original unity out of which some sad fate has cast it—a moment when the world seems to be one thing and not several things: the stars and the stream, the odours afloat upon the stream, the bird's song and the words of Jesus: whosoever admires ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... of life, we confide in thy goodness. She is of a long-suffering race, and thou wilt not desert her to the blindness of the heathen. She is thine, she is wholly thine, King of Heaven! and yet hast thou permitted our hearts to yearn towards her, with the fondness of earthly love. We await some further manifestation of thy will, that we may know whether the fountains of our affection shall be dried in the certainty of her blessedness—" (scalding tears were rolling down the cheeks of the pallid and immovable mother) "or whether ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... the mighty, the hope of the ancient Earth: It shall labour and bear the burden as before that day of their birth: It shall groan in its blind abiding for the day that Sigurd hath sped, And the hour that Brynhild hath hastened, and the dawn that waketh the dead: It shall yearn, and be oft-times holpen, and forget their deeds no more, Till the new sun beams on Baldur ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... and we eagerly and ardently trust that the day will yet arrive when the clank of the bondman's fetters will form no part of the multitudinous sounds which our country sends up to Heaven, mingling, as it were, into a song of praise for our national prosperity. We yearn with strong desire for the day when freedom ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... sobb'd Matilda, "but saved to what fate? Tears, prayers, yes! not hopes." "Hush!" the sweet voice replied. "Fool'd away by a fancy, again to your side Must your husband return. Doubt not this. And return For the love you can give, with the love that you yearn To receive, lady. What was it chill'd you both now? Not the absence of love, but the ignorance how Love is nourish'd by love. Well! henceforth you will prove Your heart worthy of love,—since it knows how ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... say, and I will not say That he is dead—he is just away! With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand He has wandered into an unknown land, And left us dreaming how very fair It needs must be, since he lingers there, And you—O you, who the wildest yearn For the old-time step and the glad return Think of him faring on, as dear In the love of There as the love of Here; And loyal still, as he gave the blows Of his warrior-strength to his country's foes. Mild and gentle, as he was brave, When the sweetest love ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... no great change had taken place inside him, but his exterior was visibly altered. Nothing about him encouraged any hope that he had received his come-upance; on the contrary, the yearners for that stroke of justice must yearn even more itchingly: the gilded youth's manner had become polite, but his politeness was of a kind which democratic people found hard to bear. In a word, M. le Due had returned from the gay life of the capital to show himself for a week among the loyal peasants ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... an earnest longing In those who onward gaze, Looking with weary patience Towards the coming days. There is a deeper longing, More sad, more strong, more keen: Those know it who look backward, And yearn for what ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... that are regarded as synonymous with "worry," or that are related to it, he sees what cruelties lurk in the facts behind the words. To grieve, fret, pine, mourn, bleed, chafe, yearn, droop, sink, give way to despair, all belong to ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... capacities, precious beyond all count, rich beyond all else that a man has ever received. Nothing that you have is half so much as that which you are. The possession of a soul that knows and loves, and can obey; that trusts and desires; that can yearn and reach out to Jesus Christ, and to God in Christ; of a conscience that can yield to His command; and faculties of comprehending and understanding what comes to them from Jesus Christ—that is more than any other possession, treasure, or trust. That which you and I carry with us—the infinite ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... ask, How is it that you are not reconciled to your son? You love him—love him intensely. Probably you are more conscious of your love for him than for any other of your children. Your heart yearns over him every day; you pray for him night and day; you dream of him by night; your bowels yearn over your son, and you say, with David, "Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son." Why are you not reconciled? Why not pat him on the head, or stroke his face, and say, "My dear lad, I am well pleased with you. I love you complacently; I give you my approbation?" ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... since 1953 have been a period of profound change. The human problems in the world grow more acute hour by hour; yet new gains in science and technology continually extend the promise of a better life. People yearn to be free, to govern themselves; yet a third of the people of the world have no freedom, do not govern themselves. The world recognizes the catastrophic nature of nuclear war; yet it sees the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... shake hands with you," he said. "Until now I had always thought that I was the only one in this parish who knew what it was to yearn; but now I see that ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... I am stricken, and my heart, Like a bruised reed, is waiting to be broken, How will its love for thee, as I depart, Yearn for thine ear to drink its last deep token! It were so sweet, amid death's gathering gloom, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... shall live alone, quite alone as far as the heart is concerned, if those with whom I yearn to ally myself turn away from me. But enough of this; I have called you my friend, and I hope you will not contradict me. I trust the time may come when I may also call your father so. May God bless you, Mrs. Bold, you and your darling boy. And tell ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... vessels. Payne did not sleep. The evening passed; and the soft Florida moon rode low in the blue mist of the warm night. The moon disappeared; and through it all he lay awake, vibrant with a fear which he dared not own, and which made him yearn for the return of daylight. Higgins rose ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... yamen, at the time of our visit, a young official, seated in his four-bearer chair, was waiting in the outer court; he had sent in his visiting card, and attended the pleasure of his superior officer. China may be uncivilised and may yearn for the missionaries, but there was refined etiquette in China, and an interchange of many of the pleasantest courtesies of modern civilisation, when we noble Britons were grubbing in the forest, painted savages ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... no desire to be embroiled in such an undignified struggle as you suggest," he told her loftily. "But neither do I yearn to spend the day here. I'm hungry. I wonder if our absent host possesses ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... And yet (as we who gaze upon it thus are fain to think) if peradventure the intolerable ennui of this panorama should drive a citizen of San Marino into outlands, the same view would haunt him whithersoever he went—the swallows of his native eyrie would shrill through his sleep—he would yearn to breathe its fine keen air in winter, and to watch its iris-hedges deck themselves with blue in spring;—like Virgil's hero, dying, he would think of San Marino: Aspicit, et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos. Even a passing stranger ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... growing chill; and the repair of the buildings went on slowly, carpenters being scarce; and Peakslow, who had a heart for domestic comforts, began to yearn for the presence of his family at ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... yearn for her— Yes, ardently we yearn For her return. Recalling those beloved days (Days intimate with ways Of friends so near to us And life so dear to us), We yearn unspeakably for ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... least the fascinating tulip and lily," says the sad man who mentioned Desmond's name. "Don't put yourself beyond the pale of art by saying you had forgotten those aesthetic flowers,—blossoms, I mean. Don't you yearn when you ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... there walks on earth this day Man so remorseless, that he hath not yearn'd With pity at the sight that next I saw. Mine eyes a load of sorrow teemed, when now I stood so near them, that their semblances Came clearly to my view. Of sackcloth vile Their cov'ring seem'd; and on his shoulder one Did stay another, leaning, and all ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... must yearn sometimes to get home to your family and friends. Have you no mother you long to kiss—no father who is pining for a sight of his daughter's smile, and old chums waiting to greet you with a hearty ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... yearn to gaze (For was there not the dear abode Of her whose love lit up my days?) ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... wish that means to travel should be furnished to me." Thorkell said, "I do not think I have done against you two brothers in anything since our alliance began. Now, I think it is the most natural thing that you should yearn to get to know the customs of other men, for I know you will be counted a brisk man wheresoever you may come among doughty men." Thorleik said he did not want much money, "for it is uncertain how I may look after matters, ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... loved the child from the moment the big lustrous gray eyes opened, on the day of her sudden illness at Outside Inn, and looked confidingly up into hers. For the first time in her life her maternal ardor—the instinct which made her yearn to nourish and minister to a race—had concentrated on a single human being. Sheila, hungry for mothering, had turned to her with the simplicity of the people among whom she had been brought up, taking her sympathetic response ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... office, yet accurst,— My heart of lust to guard God's holiest gift, And plead in prayer from lips all stained with sin,— Pleading for you who purer are than I! O direst judgment from the God of grace! My inmost soul doth long for His forgiveness, I yearn for sign of His compassion, Yet cannot bear His mercy in the Grail.... But now the hour is nigh! I seem to see A ray of glory fall upon the Cup! The veil is raised! The sacred stream that flows Within the crystal, gloriously shines With radiance ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... aches, will such a God care for you? Will his thunders console you? When your soul is dark, will his lightnings illumine it? When you yearn for love, will his inexorable law ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... through combat to victory;" "The glory which men give and take is transitory," these and like phrases were already deeply engraven on the fleshly tablets of his heart. Amid all his glowing triumphs he was developing a curious disinclination to appear in public; he seemed to yearn for solitude ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... explain how, that here is expression straight from the heart of humanity; that here is something like the sturdy root from which the finer, though not always more lovely, flowers of polite literature have sprung. At times when we yearn for polite grace, ballads may seem rude; at times when polite grace seems tedious, sophisticated, corrupt, or mendacious, their very rudeness refreshes us with a new sense of brimming life. To compare the songs collected by Professor Lomax with the immortalities ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various |
