Devonshire & Other Original Poems: With Some Account of Ancient Customs, Superstitions, and TraditionsPrinted and published at the office of the Devon Weekly Times, 1873 - 94 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
banish beautiful birds bloom bones Bray bright Chagford cheer child CHORUS.-Let us sing Christmas Christmas Eve clouds cottage Cuckoo dancing dark Dartmoor dear devil Devon Devonshire door earth eyes face fair Fairy farmer flow flow'rs friends Fulford Giles glad gloom glow golden Granfer green hand happy happy days heard heart heerd horse hounds Jack Hannaford jocund joyful Lady Howard let us sing light live meadows melody merry morning neath never night nivver o'er Okehampton Oxenham Peak Hill pigsies Pixies poor primrose purty Jane round shining SIDMOUTH Sir Francis Sir James snow-drop song sorrow soul Spring stone story Summer Tavistock tears Teignmouth thee There's thou thought thrush tree true Uncle Ben village wander wassailing white witch wife wild wood and grove WOOD ANEMONE woodland young دو وو
Popular passages
Page 92 - ... soldier's neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, Of healths five fathom deep ; and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts, and wakes ; And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two, And sleeps again. This is that very Mab, That plats the manes of horses in the night ; And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs, Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes...
Page 67 - Monday's child is fair of face, Tuesday's child is full of grace, Wednesday's child is full of woe, Thursday's child has far to go, Friday's child is loving and giving, Saturday's child has to work for its living, But a child that's born on the Sabbath day Is fair and wise and good and gay.
Page 36 - A brilliant morning shines on the old city. Its antiquities and ruins are surpassingly beautiful, with a lusty ivy gleaming in the sun, and the rich trees waving in the balmy air. Changes of glorious light from moving boughs, songs of birds, scents from gardens, woods, and fields — or, rather, from the one great garden of the whole cultivated island in its yielding time — penetrate into the Cathedral, subdue its earthy odour, and preach the Resurrection and the Life.
Page 67 - Oliver,1' dressed in black, with his face and hands smeared over with soot and grease, and his body bound by a strong cord, the end of which is held by one of the men to prevent his running too far. After these come another troop, dressed in the same style, each man bearing a large branch of oak...
Page 68 - Rev. Sir, I should take it as a great favour if your Honour would be good enough to let me have the key of the churchyard to-night, to go in at twelve o'clock, to cut off...
Page 87 - ... the old woman and her grandson left the cottage and went off together, the one to be hunted, and the other to set on the hunt. The news came, the hounds were unkennelled, and huntsmen and sportsmen set off with surprising speed. The witch, now a hare, and her little colleague in iniquity, did not expect so very speedy a turn out, so that the game was pursued at a desperate rate, and the boy, forgetting himself in a moment of alarm, was heard to exclaim— " Run, granny, run; run for your life!
Page 64 - Then the assailant would run away, be followed and caught, and brought back again as prisoner, and had to undergo the punishment of roasting the shoe. This consisted in an old shoe being hung up before the fire, which the culprit was obliged to keep in a constant whirl, roasting himself as well as the shoe, till some damsel took compassion on him and let him go ; in this case he was to treat her with a little present at the next fair.
Page 82 - Paradise." "Lord a' mercy! and maybe you've seen my old man there," alluding to her former husband. "Yes, I have." "And how was he a-doing?" asked the goody. "But middling; he cobbles old shoes, and he has nothing but cabbage for victuals.
Page 88 - The huntsman, all the squires with their train, lent a hand to break open the door, but could not do it till the parson and the justice came up; but as law and church were certainly designed to break through iniquity, even so did they now succeed in bursting the magic bonds that opposed them.
Page 71 - Which freely drink to your lord's health, Then to the plough, the commonwealth, Next to your flails, your fanes, your fatts...