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Vesper   /vˈɛspər/   Listen
Vesper

noun
1.
A planet (usually Venus) seen at sunset in the western sky.  Synonyms: evening star, Hesperus.
2.
A late afternoon or evening worship service.



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"Vesper" Quotes from Famous Books



... "We near the vesper hour, my daughter," said Agostino; "you would provoke me to argumentation in heaven itself. I am for peace. I remember looking down on two cats with arched backs in the solitary arena of the Verona amphitheatre. We men, my Carlo, will not, in the decay ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... lock is luminous, gently float, Fraught with hale odors up the heavens afar, To faint when twilight on her virginal throat Wears for a gem the tremulous vesper star. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... Briar-patch. Out of the grass just ahead of him flew a rather pale, streaked little brown bird, and as he spread his tail Peter saw two white feathers on the outer edges. Those two white feathers were all Peter needed to recognize another little friend of whom he is very fond. It was Sweetvoice the Vesper Sparrow, the only one of the Sparrow family with white feathers ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess

... the moony light, As one ashamed, she looked upon the ground, And her white raiment glistened in his sight. And, hark! the vesper chimes began to sound, Then lower yet she drooped her young, pure cheek, And still was she ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... mariner slept he gave praise to Mary, Queen of Heaven. He sought the shriving of the hermit-priest. He ends the story because he hears "the little vesper bell" which bids him to prayer. When you read his "Hymn Before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamounix" you find yourself reading the Nineteenth Psalm. He calls on the motionless torrents and the silent cataracts and the great Mont Blanc itself to praise God. Coleridge never had ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee

... brought directly from the cities of America or Australasia. A delicious breeze comes up every morning at nine o'clock and fans the dweller in this real Arcadia until past four, when it languishes and ceases in preparation for the vesper drama of the sun's retirement from the ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... Brother Lawrence would not live long. Meanwhile, as we also hear, he spites him when he can, and fondly dreams of tripping him up somewhere, or somehow, on his way to the better world. He is turning over some pithy expedients, when the vesper bell cuts short ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... close my eyes, and fancy paints So vividly and clear, Each lovely spot, each well-known sound. To mem'ry ever dear; I hear again the vesper-bell, Chiming to evening prayer; While the cheerful song of the Gondolier, Floats through the balmy air. And thus I dream till dawn of day, Of that fair home, now ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... for she had never entered the room, or passed by the door, but she heard me sigh heavily; that I neither eat, or slept, or took pleasure in anything as before. Judge then, my L., can the valley look so well, or the roses and jessamines smell so sweet as heretofore? Ah me! but adieu—the vesper bell calls me from ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... Landgraves, no less than several other princely houses of Germany, descended from the same original stock) should about this time have been seen in the dusk of the evening at some of the upper windows in the castle, and once in a lofty gallery of the great chapel during the vesper service. This lady, generally known by the name of the White Lady Agnes, or Lady Agnes of Weissemburg, is supposed to have lived in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, and from that time, even to our own days, the current belief is, that ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... not yet lighted, the evening shadows were creeping in, and up out of the town came the ringing of the vesper bell from the church of the Recollets. For a moment there was stillness in the room and all around us, and then the chaplain began in a low voice: "I require and charge you both—" and so on. In a few moments I had made the great vow, and had put on Alixe's finger ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... rattling in the evening air, to which the curtain falls. But, being Sunday night, they act their best and most attractive play. And now, the sun is going down, in such magnificent array of red, and green, and golden light, as neither pen nor pencil could depict; and to the ringing of the vesper bells, darkness sets in at once, without a twilight. Then, lights begin to shine in Genoa, and on the country road; and the revolving lanthorn out at sea there, flashing, for an instant, on this palace front and portico, illuminates it as if there were a bright moon bursting ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... was to be seen, and when a few prematurely warm days had given a flattering foretaste of soft weather. He sang early in the dawning, long before sun-rise, and late in the evening, just before the closing in of night, his matin and his vesper hymns. It is true, he sang occasionally throughout the day; but at these still hours, his song was more remarked. He sat on a leafless tree, just before the window, and warbled forth his notes, free and simple, but singularly sweet, with something of a plaintive tone, that heightened ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... is no more than a variant of 'Ash) here translated "Arcturus" were rendered by the "Seventy" as "Arktouros" in the first passage; as "Hesperos" in the second passage; and their rendering was followed by the Vulgate. The rendering Hesper or Vesper is absurd, as "the sons" of Hesper has no meaning. "Arktouros" is not improbably a misrendering of "Arktos," "the north," which would give a free but not a literal translation of the meaning of the passage. In another ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder

... finished. "Do you remember, Ben," he continued in a low voice, but otherwise unmindful of those about us, "that some half a dozen years ago, when Thomas Webster was sore put to it for enough money to square his debts and make a clean start, the brig Vesper, on which he had sent a venture, returned him a profit so unbelievably great that he was able to pay his creditors and buy from the Shattucks the old Eastern Empress, which he fitted out for the voyage to Sumatra that ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes

... How swift she sought the desert, with what wings Hovered in anguish o'er her ancient home? All that, of old, Eurotas, happy stream, Heard, as Apollo mused upon the lyre, And bade his laurels learn, Silenus sang; Till from Olympus, loth at his approach, Vesper, advancing, bade the shepherds tell Their tale of sheep, and ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil

... custume, as though the custume of an euil thing wer any thing else th[en] an old errour, whiche ought so much the more dilig[en]tly to be pulled vp bicause it is crept among many. So ctinueth amg the diuines y^e maner of a vesper, for they note an euyl thynge w^t a like name, more mete for scoffers th[en] diuines. But thei y^t professe liberal sci[en]ces, shuld haue also liberal sports. But I come againe to chyldren, to whome nothyng is more vnprofitable, then to be vsed to stripes, whiche enormittie causeth that the ...
— The Education of Children • Desiderius Erasmus

... still the Musqueteer, True knight and succourer of the world's distress His might and skill we laurel, but more dear Our soldier for that "parfit gentlenesse" That ever in heroic hearts doth dwell, That soul as tranquil as a vesper bell, That glory in him that would glory shun, Those kindly eyes alive with Gascon fun, D'Artagnan's brother—still the old romance Runs in the blood, thank God! and still shall run: Soldier that saved the world in ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne

... the tip of a wooded island a mile or two from the mainland. Olaf knew the island and had chosen it for reasons of his own. It was primitive and alive with birds. Olaf loved the birds, and the cheer of their vesper song and bedtime twitter comforted Alan. He seized an ax, and for the first time in seven months his muscles responded to the swing of it. And Ericksen, old as his years in the way of the north, whistled loudly and rumbled a ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... their frail shelter for the night, kindled their camp fire, whose flame is ever as companionable as it is cheerful, cooked their supper, which they ate with the appetite and zest which labor gives, and then, having offered their vesper prayers and chanted their evening hymn, enjoyed that sweet sleep which is one of the greatest of all earthly blessings. At noon they always had a short religious exercise ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott

... the burden of her prayer, and there was actual pain in her voice when she cried out that Cedric might be forgiven for the murder of Christopher. Now Janet knew that the lad had only been slightly injured by Hiary and had fully recovered, and she determined to send for him, and at the Vesper service introduce him into the Chapel and thereby cause to cease her mistress' plaints. And so it came about in the late autumn, when Crandlemar was about to receive its new master from Wales, and the plate and all belongings of the Duke had been sent to Ellswold, and Katherine herself ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... me the holy-talk of Vesper and of Matin, He heard me my Greek and he heard me my Latin, He blessed me and crossed me to keep my soul from evil, And we watched him out of sight, and we conjured up ...
— A Few Figs from Thistles • Edna St. Vincent Millay

... in forming an alliance with the barbarian nations around him, and burning with rage, followed the army of the retiring foe. He overtook them near the city of Periaslavle. It was the evening of the 23d of August. The unclouded sun was just sinking at the close of a sultry day, and the vesper chants were floating through the temples of the city. The storm of war burst as suddenly as the thunder peals of an autumnal tempest. The result was most awful and fatal to the king. His troops were dispersed and cut to pieces. Ysiaslaf himself with difficulty escaped and reached the ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... for which she shows no gratitude. Life appears to be indifferent to these people. But, if these be brigands, we prefer them to those of Naples, and even to the innkeepers of England. As we saunter home in the pleasant afternoon, the vesper-bells are calling to each other, making the sweetest echoes of peace everywhere in the hills, and all the piano is jubilant with them, as we come down ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... people of the pine, Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine, And Vesper bell's that rose the boughs along; The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line, His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng Which learned from this example not to fly From a true ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... came flying home to the arbor where the nest was, and having twittered out a little vesper-song, put its head under its wing, near his mate, which sat brooding in the nest over some little eggs, and the thought stole into her heart, "Will God take care of them and not me?" and she watched the peaceful sleep of the ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... above, below, And death stood close at the captain's side, When he saw—Oh, joy!—in the sunset glow, The thorn-tree's branch o'er the waters glide. "Land! Land ahead!" was the joyful shout; The vesper hymn o'er the ocean swept; The mutinous sailors faced about; Together they fell ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... cutting corn in Trian-Conchobhair. They were seized with great thirst, whereupon a vessel of whey was taken to them from Patrick, who persuaded them to observe abstinence from tierce to vesper time. It happened that one of them died; and he was the first man that was buried by Patrick—i.e., Colman Itadach, at the cross by the door of Patrick's house. What Patrick said when it was told to him was: "My debroth, there will be abundance of food and ale ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various

... which wakes the wish, and melts the heart, Of those who sail the seas, on the first day When they from their sweet friends are torn apart; Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way, As the far bell of vesper makes him start, Seeming to weep the dying day's decay. Is this a fancy which our reason scorns? Ah, surely nothing dies but ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... lay stretched at their ease, the birds hymning vesper songs amid the boughs above, or dropping, noiseless and fearless, for their evening food on the swards around them, the wanderer said to Kenelm, "You tell me that you are no poet, yet I am sure you have a poet's perception: ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... boys who delivered packages from the downtown shops were to leave their goods and get their receipts; here the laundryman was to wait every Monday morning while Adah gathered up my hebdomadal bundle of linen for the wash; here were the children to gather for a frolic every evening after the humble vesper meal. ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field

... afternoon, the massive gray square tower of an old Cathedral rises before the sight of a jaded traveller. The bells are going for daily vesper service, and he must needs attend it, one would say, from his haste to reach the open Cathedral door. The choir are getting on their sullied white robes, in a hurry, when he arrives among them, gets on his own robe, and ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... sobering Genius change To a lamp his gusty torch. What though no more Athwart its roseal glow Thy face look forth triumphal? Thou put'st on Strange sanctities of pathos; like this knoll Made derelict of day, Couchant and shadow-ed Under dim Vesper's overloosened hair: This, where emboss-ed with the half-blown seed The solemn purple thistle stands in grass Grey as an exhalation, when the bank Holds mist for water in the nights of Fall. Not to ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... to a massacre of the French in Sicily at the hour of vespers on the eve of Easter Monday in 1282, the signal for the commencement being the first stroke of the vesper bell; the massacre included men and women and children to the number of 8000 souls, and was followed ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... and drum and viol, and he would have frequent music. Each day toward evening each man was given a cup of wine. And before sunset all were gathered for vesper service, and we sang Salve Regina. At night the great familiar stars shone out ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... of the Song-Sparrow, when the spring-flowers have begun to be conspicuous in the meadow, we are greeted by the more fervent and lengthened notes of the Vesper-bird, (Fringilla graminea,) poured out with a peculiarly pensive modulation. This species closely resembles the former, but may be distinguished from it, when on the wing, by two white lateral feathers in the tail. The chirp of the Song-Sparrow is also louder, and pitched on a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... get a sufficiently satisfactory thrill of mingled emotions at the sound. But the guide will reassure you by saying that that great pack of howling Wolves is nothing more than a harmless little Coyote, perhaps two, singing their customary vesper song, demonstrating their wonderful vocal powers. Their usual music begins with a few growling, gurgling yaps which are rapidly increased in volume and heightened in pitch, until they rise into a long squall or scream, which again, as it dies away, breaks ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton

... there shall be, In every heart of kindly feeling, A rite as holy paid to thee As if beneath the convent-tree Thy sisterhood were kneeling, At vesper hours, like sorrowing angels, keeping Their tearful watch around thy ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... where dark Miami wends, Seek that fair spot as yet to fame unknown; Where, when the vesper dew of heaven descends, Soft music breathes in many a melting tone, At times so sadly sweet it seems the moan Of some poor Ariel penanced in the rock; Anon a louder burst—a scream! a groan! And now amid the tempest's reeling shock, Gibber, and shriek, ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake

... inside the fence. There on the ground were two or three white-crowned sparrows, and in an instant the truth of the case flashed upon me. I remembered the saying of a friend, that the song of the white-crown had reminded him of the vesper sparrow and the black-throated green warbler. That was my bird; and I listened again, though I could no longer be said to feel in doubt. A long time I waited. Again and again the birds sang, and at last I discovered one of them perched at the top of the ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey

... nive populus: Qui nunc defluit, alta Haesit sub glacie latex: Qui nunc purpureis floret ager rosis, Immoto sterilis delituit gelu: Verno quae strepit ales, Hiberno tacuit die. Ergo rumpe moras, & solidum gravi Curae deme diem, quem tibi candidus Spondet vesper, & albis Cras Horae ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski

... proud king was sitting in his place at church, at vesper service; his courtiers were about him, in their bright garments, and he himself was dressed in his royal robes. The choir was chanting the Latin service, and as the beautiful voices swelled louder, the king noticed one particular verse which seemed to be repeated again ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant

... conventional type. "He is very religious," wrote (p. 106) Giustinian, "and hears three masses daily when he hunts, and sometimes five on other days. He hears the office every day in the Queen's chamber, that is to say, vesper and compline."[272] The best theologians and doctors in his kingdom were regularly required to preach at his Court, when their fee for each sermon was equivalent to ten or twelve pounds. He was generous in his almsgiving, and his usual offering on Sundays and saints' days was ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... massive grey square tower of an old Cathedral rises before the sight of a jaded traveller. The bells are going for daily Vesper Service, and he must needs attend it, one would say, from his haste to reach the open Cathedral door. The choir are getting on their sullied white robes, in a hurry, when he arrives among them, gets on his own robe, and falls into the procession filing in ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... symbolic use of lights in divine worship seems to have been handed on from the Jewish Temple to the Christian Church. The candles upon the Altar, as in use in many churches, whether the two Eucharistic lights or the vesper lights, not only give beauty and festival character to the service, but are an expressive sign of spiritual gladness and joy, and a symbol, suggested by His own words, of Christ as the true "light of the world." They remind us of the gladness and spiritual illumination which the ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester

... spire in the evening calm, No more they circle in sportive glee, Hearing the hum of the vesper psalm, And the swell of the organ so far below; But far, far away, over land and sea, In the still mid-air the ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... this night must be my bed, The bracken curtain for my head, My lullaby the warder's tread, Far, far from love and thee, Mary; To-morrow eve, more stilly laid My couch may be my bloody plaid, My vesper song, thy wail, sweet maid! It ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... shadows that were darkening his wife's pale beauty. For a while, a deep stillness was about them. Flooded by the gold of the setting sun, lay the park at their feet; farther off glimmered the domes of St. Stephen at Vienna, and faint over the evening air came the soothing tones of the vesper-bell. ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... reunion, where every one goes, listens as he will to the music of the Papal choir in the Chapel of the Sacrament, and strolls about the vast interior where the promenade of the multitude does not yet disturb in the least the vesper service in the chapel. Here one meets everybody; the general news of the day is exchanged; greeting and salutation and pleasant little conversational interludes mark the afternoon, while the sun sinks behind the splendid pile of the Palazzo Vaticano, and the golden light through the window ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... sidera pacem. 5 Non sol rutilo concitus igne Gelidum Phoebes impedit axem Nec quae summo uertice mundi Flectit rapidos Vrsa meatus. Numquam occiduo lota profundo 10 Cetera cernens sidera mergi Cupit oceano tingere flammas. Semper uicibus temporis aequis Vesper seras nuntiat umbras Reuehitque diem Lucifer almum. 15 Sic aeternos reficit cursus Alternus amor, sic astrigeris Bellum discors exulat oris. Haec concordia temperat aequis Elementa modis, ut pugnantia 20 Vicibus cedant umida siccis Iungantque fidem frigora flammis Pendulus ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

... of the chapel sounding joyously broke in upon these demonstrations, and two little choristers came running back to tell them that, by order of Fra Gianmaria, a Te Deum for the safety of Fra Paolo would be sung, in lieu of the interrupted vesper service. ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... stilly laid, My couch may be the bloody plaid, My vesper song, thy wail, sweet maid! It ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... group beauty of song is developed many times oftener than is especial ornateness of plumage. The bird-lover who is himself keen of ear is never tired of listening, when in the field, for the two low notes with which the vesper sparrow introduces a song, the rest of which is not at all unlike the one of his song-sparrow cousin. The field sparrow begins more like the song sparrow, but ends with an often repeated note, which not a little resembles in general character the somewhat more monotonous song of the grasshopper ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker

... assurance that it is not the first time. Travelling in foreign lands, we are ever and anon haunted by a sense of familiarity with the views, urging us to conclude that surely we have more than once trodden those fields and gazed on those scenes; and from hoary mountain, trickling rill, and vesper bell, meanwhile, mystic tones of strange memorial music seem to sigh, in remembered accents, through the soul's plaintive echoing halls, "'Twas auld lang syne, my dear, 'Twas ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... The vesper bells at Port Praya were now summoning the poor black friars to their devotion; and a stir and bustle appeared among the little black boys and girls, of whose presence I was till then ignorant. They ran from the coverts, and assembled near the front of the only ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Observing this vesper migration in different places, I began to see orderly segregation on a large scale. All the smaller herons dwelt together on certain islands in more or less social tolerance; and on adjoining trees, separated by only a few yards, scores of hawks concentrated ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... vesper hymn, my lord of Surrey?" he cried with a laugh, as the other hastily thrust the tablets, which he had hitherto held in his hand, into his bosom. "You will rival Master Skelton, the poet laureate, and your friend Sir Thomas Wyat, too, ere long. ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... silver lamp. The peace and hush of eventide was in the air, and fell like a charm upon Dalaber's fevered spirit. The sound of the angelus bell was heard from several quarters, and as they passed St. Bernard's Chapel they stepped into the building, and remained kneeling there a brief while, as the vesper service was chanted. ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green

... camp, the English train had now passed, and the city gates were reached. The streets were alive with martial show. The Lion King led to lodgings that overlooked the town. Here Marmion, by the King's command, was to remain until the vesper hour and then to ride to Holy-Rood. Meanwhile Sir David ordered a ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins

... of the Virgin, is part of the vesper service of the Church, and has been treated by all the old Church composers of prominence both in plain chant and in polyphonic form. In the English cathedral service it is often richly harmonized, and Bach, Mozart, Handel, Mendelssohn and others have set it ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton

... the dews of night The vesper star appears! So faith lights up the mourner's heart, Whose eyes are dim with tears. Night falls, but soon the morning light Its glories shall restore; And thus the eyes that sleep in death Shall ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams

... THE SWEET VESPER BELLS OF ANCONA.—Ballad, Written and composed by JOHN PARRY, and illustrated with reminiscences of Ancona, after a sketch from the Composer's own portfolio. 2s. 6d. This admired song is altogether one of the happiest conceptions of this gifted favourite ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various

... clerk came into the church to toll the vesper bell, he saw by the altar Anne Lisbeth, who had spent the whole day there. Her physical forces were almost exhausted, but her eyes gleamed brightly, and her cheeks had a rosy flush. The last rays of the sun shone upon her, and gleamed over the altar on the bright buckles of the ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... a region of valleys fair, Of stately forests and mountains bold, Of churches filled with treasures rare, And storied castles centuries old; But now and then, when the sun sinks low, And the vesper bell is softly rung, I think of the days of long ago, And yearn for the land where I ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard

... made excuses to the pale Moon, who is their guardian,—all but the sweet Vesper Star: she was silent; and when a white cloud floated by, she was glad of an excuse ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May

... is up, round beauty's shine, Love's pilgrims bend at vesper hour, Earth breathes to heaven, and looks divine, And lovers' hearts ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... any satisfaction in mercenary intrigues, they succumb to an indefinable sort of languor, which is called home-sickness, though, in reality, love with them is indissolubly associated with their native village, with its steeple and vesper bells, and with the familiar scenes of home. The hot-blooded southerner kills his rival, as he may the object of his passion. The sentiment of which I am speaking is fatal only to him who is possessed by it, and this is why the ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... came to the village, when the sun In the "golden west" was bright, When sounds were dying one by one, And the vesper star was shining down, With a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various

... turtles drum in the pulseless bay, The crickets creak in the prickful hedge, The bull-frogs boom in the puddling sedge And the whoopoe whoops its vesper lay Away In the twilight soft ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... loud uproar bursts from that door! The Wedding-guests are there; But in the Garden-bower the Bride And Bride-maids singing are: And hark the little Vesper-bell Which ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth

... across the spicery snare, The aromatic smells of redolent wood, Camphor, cinnamon, cassia, are incense there, And the tall aloe soaring into the flood Of pearlaceous moonlight stimulates the air Which scarcely soughs, so heavy with vesper scents; The calamus growing by the pond, did spare A spicey breath, with sweet sebaceous drents Of nard, and Jiled's balsamic tree, balm sweet, Were all which ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... as he listens To the sound that grows apace; Well he knows the vesper ringing Of the ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... crevices of the carefully closed shutters only a few scattered sunbeams entered, piercing the drowsy and warm obscurity of the vast apartment. The rest and peace of the Sunday seemed to enter and diffuse itself in the room with the last sounds of the distant vesper bell. Profound silence reigned in the empty house in which the mother and child were to remain alone until dinner time, the servant having asked permission to go see ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola

... the vulturous sun. Wasted, yet daily renewed, enduring, yet murmuring not, he hurled defiance at Fat, scoffed at the vain rage of Jupiter Pinguis, and proffered to the world below a new life in his fiery gift of stale bran-bread. Would you could have heard that vesper hymn stealing hirsute through the mellow evening-air! It sung the Peptic Saints and Martyrs, explored the bowels of old Time, and at last died away in dulcet cadence as it chanted the glories of the coming Age of Grits. Again, in the silent night-watches, did sage ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... delighted me so much, so very much more than the most faultless performance could have done, that I determined to enjoy it once more; and towards vesper-time, after a cheerful dinner with two bagmen at the inn of the Golden Star, and a pipe over the rough sketch of a possible cantata upon the music which the devil made for Tartini, I turned my steps once more ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee

... virum dies; Vesper colloquiis dulcibus ad focum; Somnis nox magis, et preci: Sed nil, Terrigenum ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.

... be a real specimen of a Catholic chapel," he said; "we mean to make the attempt of getting the Bishop to dedicate it to the Royal Martyr—why should not we have our St. Charles as well as the Romanists?—and it will be quite sweet to hear the vesper-bell tolling over the sullen moor every evening, in all weathers, and amid all the changes and chances ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... attendance, a discrimination which did not fail to react upon the literary undergraduates. The rule still held, however, until 1871; though the Sunday monitor who checked church attendance had long disappeared. Daily prayers were maintained until 1895 when they were succeeded by semi-weekly vesper services, which, in turn, were eventually discontinued. Current opinion upon this gradual change is possibly reflected in the statement made ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw

... the peace of the sunlit park, You bring with your evening lull The vesper song of the meadow lark; But my soul is sick for the seething dark, And the scream of ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen

... to more derivations in answer to Hegius. [Greek: Anthropos] he considers a fundamental word, which, like homo, defies analysis: but nevertheless he suggests [Greek: ana] and [Greek: trepo], or [Greek: terpo], or [Greek: trepho]. To explain vesper he cites Sallust, Catullus, Ovid, Pliny's Letters, Caesar's Civil War, Persius and Suetonius. (We must remember that in those days a man's quotations were culled from his memory, not from a dictionary or concordance.) He goes on: 'About forming words by analogy, I rarely allow myself to ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen

... lawe of thi nature,- 3200 Bot natheles ther is a thing, Which onli to the knouleching Belongeth as in privete To love and to his duete, Which asketh noght to ben apert, Bot in cilence and in covert Desireth forto be beschaded: And thus whan that thi liht is faded And Vesper scheweth him alofte, And that the nyht is long and softe, 3210 Under the cloudes derke and stille Thanne hath this thing most of his wille. Forthi unto thi myhtes hyhe, As thou which art the daies yhe, Of love and myht no conseil hyde, Upon this derke nyhtes ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower

... choked by weeds and yellow leaves. The reed whistles to the wind, where it had once sported among roses, and shaken perfume from the orange-blossom. The convent-bell flings its sullen sound, or the drowsy vesper-hymn floats along these solitudes, which once resounded with the song, and the dance, and the lover's serenade. Well may the Moors lament over the loss of this earthly paradise; well may they remember ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... have left their swords outside, and entered, and had a stormy interview with Becket; enraged by his unyielding firmness, they went back for their weapons, and in the meantime the archbishop was hurried by the terrified monks through the cloister and into the cathedral, where the vesper service was being held. The knights quickly forced their way after him, and the monks locked and barricaded the cloister door. But Becket, who bore himself heroically through the whole scene, insisted ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers

... evening, while the vesper bells were ringing, Salome dressed herself, and, leaning on the arm of the mother-superior headed the procession of the sisterhood as they marched to the chapel and took their seats in the recess behind the screen, which was so cunningly devised, ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... vesper hour, The time for rest, and peace, and prayer, When falls the dew, and folds the flower Its petals, delicate and fair, Against the chilly evening air; And yet the bridegroom was not there. The guests, ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands

... me if death has robbed you of treasures That sweetened the tone of your vesper song; Tell me if fears have destroyed all the pleasures Which justice and right say to ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite

... sun's gorgeous coming— His setting indescribable, which fills My eyes with pleasant tears as I behold Him sink, and feel my heart flow softly with him Along that western paradise of clouds The forest shade—the green bough—the bird's voice— The vesper bird's, which seems to sing of love, And mingles with the song of cherubim, As the day closes over Eden's walls:— All these are nothing, to my eyes and heart, ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... broad, white desolation— While in my ears small melancholy bells Knolled their long, solemn and prophetic chime;— But hark! a louder and a holier toll, Shedding its benediction on the air, Proclaims the vesper hour— Ave Maria! ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... called indiscriminately the grass finch, the bay-winged bunting, the bay-winged sparrow, the vesper sparrow, and I know not what else (the ornithologists have nicknamed him Pooecetes gramineus), is a singer of good parts, but is especially to be commended for his refinement. In form his music is strikingly like the song sparrow's; but the voice ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey

... and deserted. At other times, in the summer evenings, one would have seen tired yet boisterous groups of peasants returning home from working in the fields and hastening back to their respective villages. The voice of the vesper bell would everywhere have been resounding, the sweetly-sad songs of the good-humoured peasant girls would have soothed the ear, mingled with the jingle of the bells of the homeing kine, and the joyous barking of the dogs bounding on in front of ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... in the Church, for the Church, through the Church; a life which she blessed in mass at morning and sent to peaceful rest by the vesper hymn; a life which she supported by the constantly recurring stimulus of the sacraments, relieving it by confession, purifying it by penance, admonishing it by the presentation of visible objects for contemplation and worship—this was the life which they of the ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... dragonish; A vapour sometime, like a bear or lion, A towered citadel, a pendant rock, A forked mountain, or blue promontory With trees upon't, that nod unto the world And mock our eyes with air. Thou hast seen these signs, They are black vesper's pageants. ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... this vesper, Cold the sun shines down the door. If you stood there, would you whisper "Love, I love you," as before,— Death pervading Now, and shading Eyes you sang of, that yestreen, As the ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... a magical isle up the river of Time, Where the softest of airs are playing; There's a cloudless sky and a tropical clime, And a song as sweet as a vesper chime, And the Junes with ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... Emma be," said Sarah. "Let's keep our tempers, if we haven't much else. There's the vesper bell!" ...
— Our Little Lady - Six Hundred Years Ago • Emily Sarah Holt

... lone and long thy lofty flight, My country? Is thy vision not as clear As that of Vesper, dauntless pioneer On Twilight's altitude? As from that height, He sees plain through the thick black walls of night, The stars all massing; so dost thou, his peer, Behold all peoples gathering, year by year, To scale the clouds to thy ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle

... from that door! The wedding-guests are there: But in the garden-bower the bride And bride-maids singing are: And hark the little vesper bell, Which ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... The vesper-sparrow's song, the stress Of yearning notes that gush and stream, The lyric joy, the tenderness, And once again the dream! ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman

... sanctifies the vesper hour When summer smiles serene; It is a joy-constraining power When ...
— A Christmas Faggot • Alfred Gurney

... Then be thy fathers pleasant bower in the field,— Where first we vowd a mutuall amitie. The court were dangerous; that place is safe. Our howre shalbe when Vesper ginnes to rise, That summons home distresfull trauellers. There none shall heare vs but the harmeles birds: Happelie the gentle nightingale Shall carroll vs a-sleepe ere we be ware, And, singing wit the prickle at ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd

... the hour that wakens fond desire In men at sea, and melts their thoughtful heart Who in the morn have bid sweet friends farewell, And pilgrim newly on his road with love Thrills, if he hear the vesper bell from far, That seems to mourn for the expiring day": A band of souls approach: "I saw that gentle band silently next Look up, as if in expectation held, Pale and in lowly guise; and, from on ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... through the quiet streets. The custom of ringing a bell, at that hour, is one which has fallen into desuetude, although, once, almost universal in New England, and may be said to bear some relation to the vesper-bell, in Roman Catholic countries. Its avowed object, indeed, was not, as in the case of the latter, to call the people to prayers, but, its effect, perhaps, was the same; for, it marked the hour at which the population of the ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... are left lonely At the gates of the far West Wait, so still, for the moon's stiller Stealing from her nest, I am held by a low vesper Haunting afar the vague twilight, Then with my soul at peace ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice

... thou art dear, Beyond what vestal lips have told, And, like a lamb from fountains clear, She turns, confiding, to thy fold. She round thy sweet, domestic bower The wreath of changeless love shall twine, Watch for thy step at vesper hour, And blend her holiest ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... that instant saw thee far Sit in thy crown of bridal flowers, And with Another watch the star We watch'd in vanish'd vesper hours. And as I paced the lonely room, I wonder'd how that holy ray Could with its light a world illume So ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... the thought of this calm vesper time, With its low murmuring sounds and silvery light, On through the dark days fading from their prime, As a sweet dew to keep your soul ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... them from the road over the eastern leg of Old Clump which is lower, silhouetted against the evening sky. The bleating of the sheep in the still summer twilight on the bosom of Old Clump is also a sweet memory. So is the evening song of the vesper sparrow, which one may hear all summer long floating out from these sweet pastoral solitudes. From one of these side-hill fields, Father and his hired man, Rube Dart, were once drawing oats on a sled when the load capsized while Rube ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs

... her with the circling throng: Her mind was like a gentle sprite, Whose wings, though aptly form'd for flight, From cowardice are seldom spread; Who folds the arms, and droops the head; Stealing, in pilgrim guise along, With needless staff, and vestment grey, It scarcely trills a vesper song Monotonous at close of day. Cross but its path, demanding aught, E'en what its pensive mistress sought, Though forward welcoming she hied, And its quick footstep ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... some strange music, steal Sadly, yet soothing, o'er his aching breast. And thou, pale exile from thy native shores,[52] Here drink,—oh, couldst thou!—as of Lethe's stream! Nor friends, nor bleeding country, nor the views Of hills or streams beloved, nor vesper bell, Heard in ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... are hooted at, hated, and abhorred. Yea, but, said Grangousier, they pray to God for us. Nothing less, answered Gargantua. True it is, that with a tingle tangle jangling of bells they trouble and disquiet all their neighbours about them. Right, said the monk; a mass, a matin, a vesper well rung, are half said. They mumble out great store of legends and psalms, by them not at all understood; they say many paternosters interlarded with Ave-Maries, without thinking upon or apprehending ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... Book Annexed, as originally presented, there stood in this place the beautiful and appropriate psalm, Levavi oculos. But the experts declared that this would never do, since from time immemorial Levavi oculos had been a Vesper Psalm, and it would be little less than sacrilege to insert it in a morning service, however congruous to such a use the wording of it might, to an unscientific mind, appear. Accordingly the excision was made; but upon inquiry it turned out that the monks had possessed a larger measure ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... and fold thy tender sheep, For lo, the great automaton of day In Isis stream his golden locks doth steep; Sad even her dusky mantle doth display; Light-flying fowls, the posts of night, disport them, And cheerful-looking vesper ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher

... too long with birds and bird-songs. It is a fond subject, however, and scarcely can I forbear to speak of the veeries, the vesper-birds, and "hair-birds" whose nests we so often found in the orchard; the cedar birds or cherry birds which so persistently stripped the wild cherry trees and pear-plum shrubs; the wood thrushes that trilled forth such sad, mellow refrains in the cool, gray ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... very deliberately willed simplicity of M. Guy de Maupassant." Careless fecundity and deliberate restraint are sufficiently irreconcilable terms to apply to the same creations. Another critic tells us of Mr. Watson that "it is of 'Collins' lonely vesper-chime' and 'the frugal note of Gray' that we think as we read the choicely worded, well-turned quatrains that succeed each other like the strong unbroken waves of a full tide," and I cannot but wonder how a full tide of strong waves can suggest anything either "frugal" or "well-chosen." ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... glorious summer evening. "The western sky was all aflame" with the gorgeous hues of the sunset; the air was like amber mist, and the shrill-voiced Canadian birds, with their gaudy plumage, sang their vesper laudates high in the green gloom of the ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming

... "of an evening as I come back from fishing I can see numbers of them walking there. When the vesper bell rings they all go in. That is the chapel adjoining the convent ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... of self-justification,—his reason forever going over and over with its plea before his regretful and never-satisfied heart, which was drawn every hour of the day by some chain of memory towards the faith whose visible administrators he detested with the whole force of his moral being. When the vesper-bell, with its plaintive call, rose amid the purple shadows of the olive-silvered mountains,—when the distant voices of chanting priest and choir reached him solemnly from afar,—when he looked into a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... hear the long, low, mellow whistle of the plantain-eaters calling up the dawn, nor in the evening the clock-bird nor the Handel-Festival-sized choruses of frogs, or the crickets, that carry on their vesper controversy of "she did"—"she didn't" so fiercely ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... diffusing a perfume blended of geraniums, roses, tropical plants and the blossoms of the North. A chorus of birds filled the air with music. Majestic old live-oaks with twilight veils of gray moss were like tall and stately nuns pausing suddenly to count their beads to the music of vesper bells. Magnolia trees in dense white blossom gave the impression that winter had aroused from his summer sleep and unfolded his blanket of snow to add his most beautiful touch to the charms of the golden days. A handsome driveway led across a lawn ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... number that the chapel could accommodate took their places long before the vesper bell stopped ringing, and when Sir George came in, bringing in with him the Lady Maude, and followed by his daughters and the two guests, there was a large concourse of disappointed worshippers outside who were bent on remaining as near the sacred edifice as they might get. Though they were ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday

... to the musical vesper-service at the Gesu— hitherto done so splendidly before the Pope and the cardinals. The manner of it was eloquent of change—no Pope, no cardinals, and indifferent music; but a great mise-en-scene nevertheless. The church is gorgeous; late ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... is the Mate Of Him in that forlorn estate! He breathes a subterraneous damp, But bright as Vesper shines her lamp: He is as mute as Jedborough Tower; She jocund as it was of yore, With all it's bravery on; in times, 30 When, all alive with merry chimes, Upon a sun-bright morn of May, It rouz'd the Vale ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth

... ever the petals and leaves were furled At the vesper-song of the sunset-world, The sleepy young rose of nine sweet summers Dreamed ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... or soon or late, To pass once more the mystic City's gate. Our hearts grow tender as we view again The dear remembered vistas of the plain, And as we draw the sun-lit portals near, The air is sweet to us with vesper prayer; While o'er the gate our lifted eyes behold The sacred sign—a cross of ...
— Across the Sea and Other Poems. • Thomas S. Chard

... noble lord! Ant. Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish: A vapour, sometime, like a bear, or lion, A tower'd citadel, a pendant rock, A forked mountain, or blue promontory With trees upon't, that nod unto the world, And mock our eyes with air. Thou hast seen these signs: They are black vesper's pageants. Eros. Ay, my lord. Ant. That which is now a horse, even with a thought, The rack dislimns; and makes it indistinct, As water is in water. Eros. It does, my lord. Ant. My good knave, Eros, now ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various

... when the vats were foamed with must, if any loitered near The minster tower at vesper hour, above him ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... and the deep shadows between the pillars before him; in the junctions of the old blocks above the arcade were wild gillyflowers blooming, and under the tiles were swallows busy over their mud nests. And as the old man tied up the bruised narcissus, in a cracked voice he sang to himself one of the vesper psalms, and ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... listen, but his attention wandered, and all the time he wished himself back in the sunny garden, where he had seen a fair young face looking through the pink sprays of almond blossoms, while the music of the vesper hymn sounded sweet and ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman

... writings were closed, there was portrayed an entirely novel specimen, one marked by the most grotesque extravagance, in the shape of that impish malignant, "the Deputy," whose pastime at once and whole duty in life seemed to be making a sort of vesper cock-shy ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent

... Ritualistic Spire rises in duplicate illusion before the multiplying vision of a traveller recently off the ferry-boat, who, as though not satisfied with the length of his journey, makes frequent and unexpected trials of its width. The bells are ringing for vesper service; and, having fairly made the right door at last, after repeatedly shooting past and falling short of it, he reaches his place in the choir and performs voluntaries and involuntaries upon the organ, in a manner not distinguishable from almost any fashionable church-music ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various

... own. Neither had Margaret accepted the invitation to the Temples' for the next week-end. She had other plans for the Sabbath, and that week there appeared on all the trees and posts about the town, and on the trails, a little notice of a Bible class and vesper-service to be held in the school-house on the following Sabbath afternoon; and so Margaret, true daughter of her minister-father, took up her mission in Ashland for the Sabbaths that were to follow; for the school-board had agreed with alacrity ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... were driving up and down, the vesper bell tolled from the cathedral. In an instant every carriage stopped—every head was uncovered, and bent in an attitude of devotion. Horses, women, men—all as if transfixed: every tongue silent—nothing heard but the bell of the cathedral, and the light breeze which bore ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... waning and the sun drooped low; Long shadows fell across the vale below, And deepened as they reached the distant wood. The sky seemed in arm's reach: in holy mood, The trees stretched forth their boughs as to bestow A vesper blessing, ere we turned to go. Like feathered mother hovering her brood, Gray twilight o'er the landscape spread her wings. I looked into your eyes: in their clear glow, There dwelt the light that altar candles throw On imaged saint and penitent who clings To God, whose likeness such pure ...
— Edward MacDowell • Elizabeth Fry Page

... with thyme, A virgin breeze freshened the jaded day. It wafted Collins' lonely vesper-chime, It breathed abroad ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson

... one) murmured her dreamy threnody and then was silent. Far in the distance a wood thrush was sounding his vesper bell softly—the "Angelus" of the wildwood. Whether it be morning, and they are clearer and more liquid heard through the misty aisles of the forest, or evening when quiet pervades the atmosphere, giving ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... the household minstrel, who always loved to please, Sat down to the new "Clementi," and struck the glittering keys. Hushed were the children's voices, and every eye grew dim, As, floating from lip and finger, arose the "Vesper Hymn." ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... such a star," quoth I. "Nay, love," she said, "'Tis but an idle tale." But some swift feeling smote upon her brow A rosy shadow. I turn'd and watch'd the sky— Calmly the cohorts of the night swept on, Led by the wide-wing'd vesper; and against the moon Where low her globe trembl'd upon the edge Of the wide amethyst that clearly paved The dreamy sapphire of the night, there lay The jetty spars of some tall ship, that look'd The night's device upon his ripe-red ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford

... The placid air of the day shed a new tranquillity over the consoling landscape. The heart of the earth seemed to taste a repose more perfect than that of common days. A hermit-thrush, far up the vale, sang his vesper hymn; while the swallows, seeking their evening meal, circled above the river-fields without an effort, twittering softly, now and then, as if they must give thanks. Slight and indefinable touches in the scene, perhaps the mere absence of the tiny human figures passing along the road ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke

... the vesper service in the cathedral the two queens met one evening, and Kriemhild, having just witnessed some daring feats performed by Siegfried in the courtyard of the castle, exclaimed in admiration: "Oh, surely so bold a knight as my husband is fit to ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... going to Early Mass, and returned at the Vesper Hour caked with Dust and 98 per cent. ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade

... yonder, Even now I seem to see, At the shrine where once he worshipped, Some old saint on bended knee; Seems to rise the smoke of incense, In a column faint and dim, Still the organ through the rafters Seems to peal the vesper hymn. ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones

... bit o' peace then. It's t' only time he does. If they'd just go and make a reg'lar end o' one another! but they never does,"—and the smith pushed away his trencher with a sigh. "Well! I reckon I mun be going. She gave me while four:—and I'm feared o' vesper bell ringing afore I can get home. There'll be more bells nor one, if so. God be wi' ye, lasses! ...
— Our Little Lady - Six Hundred Years Ago • Emily Sarah Holt

... a little rogue, gave me the kiss, and then told me, that a cavalier would be under the window a little after vesper bell, and that I must give him a billet, which she put into my hand. Of course, having received my payment before hand, I consented. At the time mentioned I looked out of the gate, and perceiving a cavalier under the window, I accosted him, "What ho, Senor, what is ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat

... questions, which is always open, which has brief singing and organ services that all and any people of any kind and degree may attend and feel themselves welcome. A morning service of praise, a mid-day song of rejoicing, a vesper hymn of thankfulness. No word of condemnation, no word of controversy, no word of doubt, no word of assertion or denial; only unceasing love, continued and eternal recognition of human kinship and readiness to minister to ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various

... the note of a bird, yet melancholy as the distant dole of a vesper-bell, arose the sound of that sweet voice from the wood. A fragment of a Spanish gipsy song it warbled: Luke knew it well. Thus ran ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... would have done much for me," he went on. "But I only begged the run of his great library. Thou knowest how hard it is for me that the Christians deny us books. And there many a day have I sat reading till the vesper bell warned me that I must hasten back ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... wife and friends that I see in the picture, and of another friend who lives so far away, whom I shall never see again, if I have such a friend. Think of my beautiful Lillia on our wedding day. We shall be married at St. Andrea's, at vesper time. ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason

... beautiful and the summer sweeter to you. Every June morning when you go out into the field, oriole and bluebird and blackbird and bobolink will fly after you and make the day more delightful to you. And when you go home tired after sundown, vesper-sparrow will tell you how grateful we are. When you sit down on your porch after dark, fifebird and hermit-thrush and wood-thrush will sing to you, and even whippoorwill will cheer you up a little. We know where we are safe. In a little while all the birds will come to live in Massachusetts ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 39, August 5, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... the Mate Of him in that forlorn estate; He breathes a subterraneous damp; But bright as Vesper shines her lamp, He is as mute as Jedborough Tower, She jocund as it was of yore With all its bravery on, in times When all alive with merry chimes Upon a sun-bright morn of May It roused the Vale ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth

... all stages of relationship. Some had already paired, and were at work upon their domiciles, but more were in the blissful and excited state of courtship, and their conversational notes, wooings, and pleadings, as they warbled the pros and cons, were quite different from their matin and vesper songs. Not unfrequently there were two aspirants for the same claw or bill, and the rivals usually fought it out like their human neighbors in the olden time, the red-breasted object of their affections standing demurely aloof on the sward, quietly watching the contest with a sidelong look, undoubtedly ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, was born on Innocents' Day, 1635. The incident accounted in Stanza iv occurred in 1637. She had been taken on a visit to Hampton Court to her mother, who wished her to be present at her own vesper-service, when Elizabeth, not yet two years old, became very restless. To quiet her a book of devotion was shown to her.' The King, when the Queen drew his attention, said, 'She ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... the winter is past, And birds are building, and woods are green, With flying skirts is the Curate seen Speeding along the woodland way, Humming gayly, "No day is so long But it comes at last to vesper-song." He stops at the porter's lodge to say That at last the Baron of St. Castine Is coming home with his Indian queen, Is coming without a week's delay; And all the house must be swept and clean, And all things set in good array! And the solemn porter shakes ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... the exposure of his son! He still clung, though excommunicated, to the priestly calling, and prided himself upon his fasts and vigils, never omitting the smallest forms or penances, and saying mass from Ave Maria in the early morning to Angelus at vesper time in the evening. For Captain Brand he was ready to shrive a dying pirate—and pretty busy he was, too, at times—or hear the confession of one with a troubled conscience in sound health; which, if ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... vesper sparrow, so called because of its habit of singing in the late evening. Its nest is made of grass and placed in a ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... on the other, past the picturesque old-fashioned arbor, half buried under vines and untrimmed trees, far down the pretty carriage-drive between young elms and flowering shrubs, where the bobolink had raised her brood, and the meadow lark had chanted his vesper hymn for us all through June. Many winged strangers came to feast on the treasures uncovered by the hay-cutter, and then the shy red-head showed himself on our grounds. To my surprise, he was searching ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... beneath our feet, and the homely sound of the vesper bell. In Christabel we float dreamily through scenes as unearthly and ephemeral as the misty moonlight, and the words in which Coleridge conjures up his vision fall into music of magic beauty. The opening of the poem creates a sense of foreboding, and the horror ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... (the same three gigantic supernatural beings who took part in the battle) appear. Faust vents his anger and chagrin with regard to the peasant and the irritating ding-dong-dell of the vesper bell. He commissions Mephistopheles to persuade the peasant to take the money and to make him turn out of his wretched hut. Mephistopheles and his mates go to carry out the order. A few moments later flames are seen to ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill

... Italy; Who has two kings in two fierce battles slain, Manfred and Conradine, and after see His bands, who seem to vex the new-won reign With many wrongs, and who dispersedly — Some here, some there — in different cities dwell. Slain on the rolling of the vesper-bell." ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... to thy vesper "service"— Dulcet exhilaration! glorious tea!— I deem my happiest. Howsoe'er I swerve, as To mind or morals, elsewhere, over thee I am a perfect creature, quite impervious To care, or tribulation, or ennui— In fact, I do agnize to thee an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... aged priest 'Mong shepherds gone in eld, whose looks increas'd The silvery setting of their mortal star. There they discours'd upon the fragile bar 360 That keeps us from our homes ethereal; And what our duties there: to nightly call Vesper, the beauty-crest of summer weather; To summon all the downiest clouds together For the sun's purple couch; to emulate In ministring the potent rule of fate With speed of fire-tailed exhalations; To tint her pallid cheek with bloom, who cons Sweet poesy by moonlight: ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats

... Proclaiming sunset, ushering evening in, Although the sky yet glowed with yellow light. The ploughboy, ere he led his cattle home, In the near meadow, reverently knelt, And doffed his cap, and duly crossed his breast, Whispering his "Ave Mary," as he heard The pealing vesper-bell. But still the knight, Unmindful of the sacred hour announced, Disdainful or unconscious, held his course. "Would that I also, like yon stupid wight, Could kneel and hail the Virgin and believe!" ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... their shields, so that the quarrels from the crossbows might not pierce through. And he continued for eighteen days to combat the city, keeping such good watch, that neither could they within receive help from without, nor themselves issue forth; and on the eighteenth day, which was the Vesper of St. Peter's, he won the city by force of arms; and few were they who escaped from the sword of the conquerors, except those who retreated with Alafum into the castle. And on the following day at the hour of tierce they also came to terms, and yielded themselves to his mercy, saving ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... subdued melodies. They are the voice of a people whose ideas revolved in a narrow circle—of people who dwelt on vast gray plains dotted with sad brown huts, and who heard no sounds but the sighing of the wind through the dark pine forests. The "Vesper Hymn," known to every ordinary player, is a very good example of the general character of Russian melodies. The songs of the peasants are further distinguished by their frequent modulation from the major to the minor key, as if not long could they be joyful, and also by the peculiar way in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... before the shrine, So rose her thoughts, as pure and as divine. She knelt until the shades grew dim without, Till one by one the altar lights shone out, Till one by one the Nuns, like shadows dim, Gathered around to chant their vesper hymn; Her voice then led the music's winged flight, And "Ave, Maris Stella" filled the night. But wherefore linger on those days of peace? When storms draw near, then quiet hours must cease. War, cruel war, defaced the land, and came So near the convent with its breath of ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter

... however, the devil, having assumed the appearance of a man, entered the grotto of the venerable John, and said to him, "John, you must continue to fast until to-morrow evening." And John, believing that it was an angel who spoke, obeyed the voice of the demon, and fasted the next day until the vesper hour. That was the only victory that the Prince of Darkness ever gained over St. John the Egyptian, and that was but a trifling one. It was therefore not astonishing that Paphnutius knew at once that the vision which had visited him in his sleep ...
— Thais • Anatole France

... sleep during such time as he deemed the operation, which he meant to perform about vespers, would occupy. In the meantime he had the water brought into his house, and set it in the window of his room, telling no one what it was. But when the vesper hour was come, and the leech was about to visit his patient, a messenger arrived from some very great friends of his at Amalfi, bearing tidings of a great riot there had been there, in which not a few had been wounded, and bidding ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... described a true scene; and we catch a glimpse of that pleasing and soothing picture, amid those rude and bloody days, of King Canute and his knights resting for a moment upon their toiling oars to hear the vesper song of the monks. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various



Words linked to "Vesper" :   Hesperus, religious service, planet, major planet, placebo, service, divine service



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