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Lament   Listen
verb
Lament  v. i.  To express or feel sorrow; to weep or wail; to mourn. "Jeremiah lamented for Josiah." "Ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Lament" Quotes from Famous Books



... could not contain himself but spoke these words: "Deeply, I trow, would Agamemnon son of Pelops lament, 149 if he heard that the Spartans had had the leadership taken away from them by Gelon and by the Syracusans. Nay, but make thou no further mention of this condition, namely that we should deliver the leadership to thee; but if thou art desirous to come ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus

... to his reverend brother of Kildrummie, as they went home from the Presbytery together, "who gets unto a wrangle with his farmers about a collection is either an upstart or he is a fool, and in neither case ought he to be a minister of the Church of Scotland." And the two old men would lament the decay of the ministry over their wine in Kildrummie Manse—being both of the same school, cultured, clean-living, kind-hearted, honourable, but not extravagantly evangelical clergymen. They agreed ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... political and military defences of Rome is again the burden of Laelius's complaint, "He has perished at a time when a mighty man is needed by you and by all who wish the safety of this commonwealth." These utterances were not merely a lament for a great soldier, but the mourning for a man who might have held the balance between classes and saved a situation that was becoming intolerable. We cannot say whether any definite means of escape from the brewing storm was present to Scipio's mind, or, if he ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... age. Let them remember the insensibility of Montaigne to the merits of all his contemporaries. In the next age, and in their own country, Ben Jonson took occasion at the very moment when Shakespeare was producing his masterpieces, to lament the total decay of poetry in England. We could not see the trees for the wood behind them, but we ought to be confident they were growing all ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt

... Heaven. Here we are away from the rest of the world, living for one another. What, then, must we do? We must love one another dearly, and help one another. I will do my part, if my life is spared, and so will Humphrey, and so will you my dear sisters. I can answer for all. Now it is no use to lament—we must all work, and work cheerfully; and we will pray every morning and every night that God will bless our endeavors and enable us to provide for ourselves, and live here in peace and safety. Kiss me, dear Alice and Edith, and kiss Humphrey, and kiss one another. Let these kisses be the seals ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... But to returne to the historie. King Henrie being thus depriued of issue to succeed him, did not a little lament that infortunate chance: but yet to restore that losse, shortlie after, euen the 10. of Aprill next ensuing, [Sidenote: Eadmerus. Hen. Hunt. The king marieth againe.] he maried his second wife named Adelicia, ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (3 of 12) - Henrie I. • Raphael Holinshed

... my indignation, by adding, "For instance, monsieur le duc, how can I sufficiently repay your friendly zeal to supply the king with a new mistress?" "I, madam?" "Yes, sir, you; I am aware of all your kind offices, and only lament my inability to reward them in a suitable manner." "In that case I shall not attempt to deny my share in the business." "You have then sufficient honor to avow your enmity towards me?" "By no means enmity, madam. I merely admit my desire to contribute to the ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... to do. It was no time to denounce or lament. The thought of the poor innocent girl receiving such a letter as Masham would be likely to write was too much to endure. If only I could prevent her ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... life has no joys while there is a single creature whom we can relieve by our bounty, assist by our counsels, or enliven by our presence, is to lament the loss of that which we possess, and is just as irrational as to die of thirst with the cup in ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... my wallet was scant I remember'd his case, Nor refused my last crust to his pitiful face; But he died at my feet on a cold winter day, And I play'd a sad lament for ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; From haunted spring, and dale Edged with poplar pale, The parting Genius is with sighing sent; With flower-inwoven tresses torn The Nymphs in twilight shade of ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various

... condolence; lamentation &c. 839; sympathy, consolation. V. condole with, console, sympathize express pity, testify pity; afford consolation, supply consolation; lament &c. 839 with; express ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... delighted to see the fresh water, but still more the pork; for there is no animal to whom food comes amiss. They let their breviaries therefore go to sleep a while, and fell heartily to work, so that the cats and dogs had reason to lament the polish of ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... the fox's; lips of clove-pink. And what a shape had she—ripe, firm, and piquant! Do you wonder that I followed her with joy? Do you wonder that I began weaving a romance? If you do, I pity you. Did I want a shallop? Of course I did; but alas! might I not have echoed Burger's lament: ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... perceive by the Returns that our loss in men, compared to that of the enemy, is but trifling; but I have sincerely to lament that of Major Nunn, of the 1st West India Regiment, whose wound is reported to be of a dangerous kind; he is an excellent man, ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis

... purifying the air, yonder treading down rich harvests, now replenishing the streams, and now strewing shores with wrecks; here a blessing, there a calamity. See what this one had done for Marguerite! Well, what? She could not lament; she dared not rejoice. Oh! if she were Claude and ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... attend you: however, if after all I have said, you are determined to go, some of my young men shall join the party, because it shall not be said that we permitted you to die alone after having brought you hither; but from the moment they embark in the canoes, I and my relatives shall lament them as dead." ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin

... commences a weird chant of invocation to the spirit of the dead woman, during which her relations in turn drop a copper coin into the salver. "Chandrabai," he wails "take this thy husband's gift of sorrow;" and as the company echoes his lament, Vishnu rises and drops his coin into the plate. Then her four brothers drop a coin apiece; her sister-in-law, whispering "It is for food" does likewise; also her mother with the words "choli patal" or "Tis a robe ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.

... think nothing of, George," Mrs. Frayling deprecated. "We lament and deplore, but ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... a dead plant on us. Luck turned against him at last!" growled Blunt, as they counted up the cost of the bootless cruise of the Hirondelle. And only Justine Delande's bitter tears flowed in silence to lament the bold adventurer who had ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... Atkins for his sense of fair play. He enjoyed giving Fritz "a little bit of all-right," but he never resented it when Fritz had his own fun at our expense. In the far-off days of peace, I used to lament the fact that we had fallen upon evil times. I read of old wars with a feeling of regret that men had lost their old primal love for dangerous sport, their naive ignorance of fear. All the brave, heroic things of life were said and done. But on those trench-mortaring ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall

... belief be sent, If such be nature's holy plan, Have I not reason to lament What man has made ...
— Memories • Max Muller

... how can you believe it? Did you not hear her lament because the man was dead? It is indeed the devil that ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... from the last rays of the sunset. With the slow fading of the daylight, sweet thoughts seem to awaken, and soft stirrings of passion, and a mysterious sense of trouble in the midst of calm. Nature sets before us vague images of bliss, bidding us enjoy the happiness within our reach, or lament it when it has fled. In those moments fraught with enchantment, when the tender light in the canopy of the sky blends in harmony with the spells working within, it is difficult to resist the heart's desires grown so magically potent. Cares are blunted, joy becomes ecstasy; pain, ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac

... which I certainly regret, as it was killed by the cat in a most distressing manner, and," added she, "my spirits are not at this moment very good in consequence of my son's wishing to enter the Navy." "The first," said he, "I lament, as it has deprived you of a pet; the latter may in the end be a matter of rejoicing. Who knows but that your son, if he enters that noble service, may turn out a second Hawke." My ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... close to the taffrail, looking out over the sea and wondering what the moaning sound of the ocean meant. I let my imagination wander over the old stories I had heard of the mermaids below, and how they sang their weird songs of lament whenever a storm was coming, anticipating the shipwrecks that would follow and the invasion of their coral caves by the bodies of drowned mortals, over whom they are said to weep tears of pearl; and, in the flickering light of the stars, that seemed to come from underneath the purple deep ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... of the dove kind. I know of nothing to compare with its soft, cadenced, and plaintive cry; it almost makes one weep to hear it, and is totally different from the coo of the turtle dove. When it begins, and the whip-poor-will joins the concert, one is apt to fancy there is a lament among the feathered kind for some general loss, in the stillness and solemnity of a summer's night, when the leaves of the vast and obscure forest are unruffled, when the river is just murmuring in the distance, and the moon ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... make no more lament, but come away with me, and I will show you the thing in the world you love best, for it is Nicolette, your sweet friend, who from far land is come to seek ...
— Aucassin and Nicolette - translated from the Old French • Anonymous

... egotist and his friends a severe pang. The next day Wolfe published his first manifesto to the Canadian people. "We are sent by the English King," it ran, "to conquer this province, but not to make war upon women and children, the ministers of religion, or industrious peasants. We lament the sufferings which our invasion may inflict upon you: but if you remain neutral, we proffer you safety in person and property and freedom in religion. We are masters of the river; no succor can reach you from France. General Amherst, with a large army, assails your southern ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... restraint of a prison cell is imposed upon the audacious libeller. Sometimes when a book offends against the public morals, and contains the outpourings of a voluptuous imagination, its author is condemned to lament in confinement over his indecorous pages. The world knows that Vizetelly, the publisher, was imprisoned for translating and publishing some of Zola's novels. Nana and L'Assommoir were indeed fatal books to him, as his imprisonment and the anxiety caused by the prosecution ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... mere fact, if nothing else could be said, that we begin life with health and end it with sickness; or in other words, that it comes to an end, for an end is a failure. And even in the quietest walks of life, do not the old feel regret, more or less vividly, that they are not young? Do not they lament the days gone by, and even with the pleasure of remembrance feel the pain? And why, except that they think that they have lost something which they once had, whereas in the beginning of life, they thought of gaining something they had not? ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... to heal again."—"GLAUBT ER DIES, Do you think so?" "Not only I, but the whole Army firmly believe it of your Majesty."—"You are quite right," added the King, in a confidentially candid way: "We will manage Daun. What I lament is, the number of brave men that have died this morning." [Retzow, i. 359 n.] On the morrow, he was heard to say publicly: "Daun has let us out of check-mate; the game is not lost yet. We will rest ourselves here, a few days; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... provide handsomely for me." A man in my circumstances, as he very well knew, had no choice. I accordingly accepted his proposal with his conditions, which were none of the most favourable, and fell to translating with all my might. I had no longer reason to lament the want of business; for he furnished me with so much, that in half a year I almost writ myself blind. I likewise contracted a distemper by my sedentary life, in which no part of my body was exercised but my right arm, which rendered me incapable of writing for a long time. This unluckily happening ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding

... presently," pursued Cynthia indignantly; and Christopher felt suddenly that there was something contemptible in the passion she expended upon trifles. He wondered if Tucker noticed how horribly petty it all was to lament a broken cup when the tears were hardly dried on Lila's cheeks. Finishing hurriedly, he pushed back his chair and rose from the table, shaking his head in response to Cynthia's request that he should ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... the resounding shore A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament; From haunted spring and dale Edged with poplar pale The parting Genius is with sighing sent; With flower-inwoven tresses torn The Nymphs in twilight ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... almost too heavy, so that we went slow and careful and stopped often, to rest us. The sun was setting when at last we got down to camp again—and we arrived, a very different party from that which had gone out twelve hours before. It was a sorry home-coming. But we must not lament or complain over what was our own fault. We must do our best to turn it to account. We must ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin

... "Never lament it, as the creatur's death could have done neither of us any good, and might have done us harm. Them echoes are more awful in my ears, than your mistake, Hurry, for they sound like the voice of natur' calling out ag'in ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... legs at the same moment were seized by something from below. My heart almost jumped out of my mouth at this, but as the yell was repeated it flashed across me I must have trod on some one's fingers, so I lifted my foot at once, and then a voice, which I knew to be that of Sampy, began to wail and lament miserably. ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... Moschus.[6] The former is best known through the oriental passion of his 'Woe, woe for Adonis,' probably written to be sung at the annual festival of Syrian origin commemorated by Theocritus in his fifteenth idyl.[7] The most important extant work of Moschus is the 'Lament for Bion,' characterized by a certain delicate sentimentality alien to the spirit of either of his predecessors. It is perhaps significant that Theocritus appears to have been of Syracusan, Bion of Smyrnian, and Moschus of Ausonian origin.[8] ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... "He rose from his bed about four, apparently as well as he has usually been in the winter time; returned to it without the least assistance, and in less than a quarter of an hour was a corpse in the arms of his sons, leaving those who knew his worth and deeply lament his loss." "It will be a shocking thing for George and John," wrote Allday Kerrison ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper

... I seek the shades, I presently do see The god of love forsake his bow and sit me by; If that I think to write, his Muses pliant be; If so I plain my grief, the wanton boy will cry. If I lament his pride, he doth increase my pain If tears my cheeks attaint, his cheeks are moist with moan If I disclose the wounds the which my heart hath slain, He takes his fascia off, and wipes them dry anon. If so I walk the woods, ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... than in most countries history repeats itself. The lament of Lord Anglesea, the Lord Lieutenant, in 1831, who, finding himself a roi faineant, declared that "Things are now come to that pass that the question is whether O'Connell or I shall govern Ireland," found its echo just fifty years later when Parnell enjoyed so powerful ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... heard Babson come out and lament that the managing editor didn't like his masterpiece and was going to use the Kells Karburetor Kompany's original write-up. "That's what you get when you try to give the Gas-bag some ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis

... burden, 'Dormi, o bella, o fingi di dormir,' of which the melody was fully worthy. But the most successful of all the tunes were two with a sad motive. The one repeated incessantly 'Ohime! mia madre mori;' the other was a girl's love lament: 'Perche tradirmi, perche lasciarmi! prima d'amarmi non eri cosi!' Even the children joined in these; and Catina, who took the solo part in the second, was inspired to a great dramatic effort. All these were purely popular songs. The people of Venice, however, are ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... which feet Have left on Tampa's desert strand; Soon as the rising tide shall beat, Their track will vanish from the sand; Yet, as if grieving to efface All vestige of the human race, On that lone shore loud moans the sea; But none shall thus lament for me. ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... though they must know it is impossible to do it. And amazing are they too, who, like Maupassant, Rod, and many others, see clearly all the horror of war, all the inconsistency of men not doing what is needful, right, and beneficial for them to do; who lament over the tragedy of life, and do not see that the whole tragedy is at an end directly men, ceasing to take account of any unnecessary considerations, refuse to do what is hateful and disastrous to them. They are amazing people truly, but those ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... and shall report, that I saw my gracious queen and mistress beheaded in England?" His tears prevented further speech; and Mary too felt herself moved, more from sympathy than affliction. "Cease, my good servant," said she, "cease to lament: thou hast cause rather to rejoice than to mourn: for now shalt thou see the troubles of Mary Stuart receive their long-expected period and completion. Know," continued she, "good servant, that all the world at best is vanity, and subject still to more sorrow than a whole ocean of tears is able ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... most assuredly than himself alone could have mingled with the material passion of the elements such human passion of pathos as thrills in such tenderly sublime undertone of an agony so nobly subdued through the lament of Pericles over Thaisa. As in his opening speech of this scene we heard all the clangour and resonance of warring wind and sea, so now we hear a sound of sacred and spiritual music as solemn as the central monochord of the inner ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... the prime of life, are carried off by accidents or sickness—or what is, I believe, oftener the case, by the ignorance and mistakes of the physicians—then, indeed, there is reason to lament! But as, in the case of your good Father, the lamp was suffered to burn out fairly, and that his sufferings were not great; and that, by his Son's glorious and unparalleled successes, he saw his family ennobled, and with the probability, in time, of its being amply rewarded, as it ought to ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol II. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson

... 'almost unexampled piety and goodness' with shame. There is only one poem that calls for attention, the Evening Walk in the Abbey Church of Holyrood House, the original, perhaps, of Fergusson's lament on the state of neglect of the then deserted mansion ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask

... the city; it was a long way from the residential section where Jean lived, and as the boy and girl had become great chums they at first missed each other very much. Soon, however, the rush of work filled in the gaps of loneliness. Each was far too busy to lament the other, and since Uncle Tom invented all sorts of attractive plans whereby they could be together on Saturday afternoons and Sundays the weeks flew swiftly along. There were motor trips, visits to the ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett

... of investigation, which is no method at all, but the mere noting of passages in the order in which he found them in looking through Shakespeare's works, is the rudest and least intelligent that could have been adopted; and his inference, that, because Shakespeare makes Jack Cade lament that the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment, and affirm that it is not the bee, but the bee's wax, that stings, therefore he must have been employed to write deeds on parchment and append wax to them in the form of seals, is a fair specimen both of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... into the courtyard of the castle, and after being subjected to a mock trial, he was beheaded "in the back court of the castle that lieth to the west". The death of the young earl, and his untimely fate, were the subjects of lament in one of the ballads ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... recovered her equilibrium, and being the guest of the officers, who were extremely courteous to her, she did not lament so loudly the calamity that saved them a long life of banishment on the beach of Indian River. By the first opportunity they were sent back to St. Augustine, the possessors of all of Ashlock's worldly goods and effects, consisting of a good rifle, several cast-nets, hand-lines, etc., etc., besides ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... happiness with her mother, it was indeed but a dream, and that cherished parent lay still and cold beneath the ground. She felt fully the cruel cheat of Fate. "Och! and she was dead all those times I was thinking of her!" was the deepest note of her lament. ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... you My bowels yearn to be made whole of all their pain and heat. Parting hath sundered us, belov'd; indeed, I stood in dread Of this, whilst yet our happiness in union was complete. To God of all the woes I've borne I plain me, for I pine For longing and lament, and Him for solace ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... is in danger of being overbalanced. What, in such a case, does society gain by the severity of the law? Is it not clear, that all the expense, trouble, and loss of time attendant on the prosecution, are almost fruitlessly bestowed? And here, it is impossible not to lament the accumulated evils arising from the slow operation of law. A man is charged, perhaps innocently, with petty larceny. The tribunal before which he is to be arraigned is not in session; accordingly, unable to procure bail, he is committed to jail, there to lie for three, or perhaps ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... you bitterly lament the loss of friends, or property, signifies great struggles and much distress, from which will spring causes ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... good-humour with any thing, that we will not miss an opportunity of exhibiting him in an amiable light. This champion of the liberties of the world, who has cracked his lungs in endeavouring, on the shores of Italy, to echo the lament of Byron over Greece, and who denounced the powers of Europe for suffering the Duke d'Angouleme to assist his cousin Ferdinand in retaking the Trocadero, yet approves of French proceedings in Spain ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various

... Douglas, a sufferer of whom history has no further word to say. The room with its imperfect lights rises before us, the wintry wind rushing in by those wide-open doors, waving about the figures on the tapestry till they too seemed to mourn and lament with wildly tossing arms the horror of the scene—the cries and clash of arms as the caterans fled, pausing no doubt to pick up what scattered jewels or rich garments might lie in their way: and by the ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... which at this time I laboured under, left me little reason to lament the very narrow limits within which the policy of the Chinese obliges every European at Canton to confine his curiosity. I should otherwise have fell exceedingly tantalized with living under the walls of so great a city, full of objects of novelty, without being able to enter it. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... raven, and recovered from him those ancient prophecies that had so long been lost. He flew away, and disappeared in the distance; the days and weeks passed, but he did not return, and at last Kapchack, relieved of his apprehensions, recalled his murderous troops, and the pigeons were left in peace to lament their Choo Hoo. ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies

... has not long been aware of. He that you loved, you love still, and his coldness and insensibility for your devotion, makes you lament ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... such gradation and difference of sorrow will the recent death of a very remarkable woman, Lucie, Lady Duff Gordon, be mourned for by all who knew her, and with such a sense of blank loss will they long continue to lament one whose public success as an author was only commensurate with the charm of her private companionship. Inheriting from both parents the intellectual faculties which she so nobly exercised, her work has been ended in the very noontide of life by premature failure of health; and the long exile ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... have come from a planet with a high proportion of water surface, a planet possibly larger than Earth though of about the same mass and with a similar atmosphere. She could rise in Earth's air. And before each thunderous lament she ...
— The Good Neighbors • Edgar Pangborn

... lament of Miss Webster, that Emilie would not have noticed it, but that she appeared so miserable, and she therefore kindly said, "I am afraid Betsey does not wait on you nicely, Miss Webster, she is so very young. I had no idea of this accident, ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart

... distress. As in the case of Hermes Trismegistus, who, seeing Egypt in all the splendour of the sciences and of occultism, so that he considered that men were consorting with gods and spirits and were in consequence most pious, he made that prophetic lament to Asclepios, saying that the darkness of new religions and cults must follow, and that of the then present things nothing would remain but idle tales and matter for condemnation. So the Hebrews, when they were slaves in Egypt, and banished to the deserts, were comforted ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno

... a new kiva is said to be of rare occurrence. On the other hand, it is common to hear the kiva chief lament the decadence of its membership. In the "Oak Mound" kiva at Sichumovi there are now but four members. The young men have married and moved to their wives' houses in more thriving villages, and the older men have died. The chief in this case also says that some 2 years ago the agent gave him a stove ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff

... middle-class struggling, there was happily little actual poverty, as it is understood in great towns. Thus the poor, to whom the clothes made by the Dorcas Society were ultimately distributed, could sometimes afford to look the gift-horse in the mouth, and to lament that good material had been marred in the making. "They wept," the organist said, "when they showed the coats and garments that Dorcas made, because they were so badly cut;" but this was a libel, for there were many excellent needlewomen in the society, and among ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... considered just, that we do not usually enforce by law, yet in these cases it would give us pleasure if law could be brought to bear upon offenders. When we think a person bound in justice to do a thing, we should like to see him punished for not doing it; we lament the obstacles that may be in the way, and strive to make amends by a strong expression of our own opinion. The idea of legal constraint is thus the generating idea of justice throughout ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain

... were living, and his bow leaned against his shoulder. In this posture his companions left him. That he was dead appeared evident to all, but a strange thing had happened. Although deprived of speech and motion, the chief heard distinctly all that was said by his friends. He heard them lament his death without having the power to contradict it, and he felt their touch as they adjusted his posture, without having the power to reciprocate it. His anguish, when he felt himself thus abandoned, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous

... am convinced of the importance of the French history, the more I lament that it was not in my power to study, as I could have wished, its copious annals in the original sources and contemporary documents, and to reproduce it abstracted of the form in which it was transmitted to me by the more intelligent of my predecessors, and thereby emancipate myself ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... transform the Maeonian sailors, and to overwhelm them in the sea, and to give the entrails of the son to be torn to pieces by his mother, and to cover the three daughters of Minyas with newly formed wings? Shall Juno be able to do nothing but lament these griefs unrevenged? And is that sufficient for me? Is this my only power? He himself instructs me what to do. It is right to be taught even by an enemy. And what madness can do, he shows enough, and more than enough, by ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... golden colour, and her regular features, despite the brilliance of her eyes, expressed candour and modesty. Her dress allowed me to follow all the lines of her figure, and the eyes dwelt pleasantly on the beauty of her form, and on the two spheres which seemed to lament their too close confinement. Although M. le Noir said nothing of all this, it was easy to see that in his own way he admired her perfections no less than I. He left us at eight o'clock, and half an hour afterwards the fat aunt went away followed ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... the happy facility of childhood, she began to recover from the first feeling of strangeness and fear, the little creature was soon happy in her new, humble home. She was too young to appreciate and lament the change in her lot; and, as she was well fed, well cared for, and treated with the most caressing affection, she was perfectly happy. Rosamond began to feel hopeful under the influence of the child's smiles and playful talk. The time must pass, she told herself, ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... with some surprise that I read lately a lament that Dr. Holmes had not written "a great novel"—a task which would have been as unsuitable to him as to Dr. Johnson or to Montaigne. It is not a question of a greater or less talent, but of a wholly different talent—as distinct as metaphysics and portrait-painting. The same critic complains ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... of want of earnestness, devoutness, in modern Art, are as short-sighted as Schiller's lament over the prosaic present, as a world bereft of the gods. It is a loss to which we can well resign ourselves, that we no longer see God throned on Olympus, or anywhere else outside of the world. It is no misfortune ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... die altogether, or if they die singly, it is equally an evil. Is anything else then going to happen than the separation of the soul and the body? Nothing. And if the Hellenes perish, is the door closed, and is it not in your power to die? It is. Why then do you lament (and say), Oh, you are a king and have the sceptre of Zeus? An unhappy king does not exist more than an unhappy god. What then art thou? In truth a shepherd: for you weep as shepherds do, when a wolf has carried ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus

... staring at him solemnly. Old Mrs. Ghost-Dog, she of the ponderous form and plaid blanket that Luck had used with such good effect in the foreground of his atmosphere scenes, lifted up her voice suddenly, and wailed after him in high-keyed lament that she would see his face no more; and Luck felt a sudden contraction of the throat while he waved his hand to ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... of nervous assent from all his flock, and the blushing disappearance of the two superfluous standers, the 'bus-conductor continued his lament in this strain. To the man with a small but loud grievance, sympathy ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson

... the thoughts that make death beautiful. So do not lament, my dear. Say often to yourself, 'There were two good creatures, two beautiful creatures, who both died for me ungrudgingly, and who adored me.' Keep a memory in your heart of Coralie and Esther, and go your way and prosper. Do you recollect the day ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... years as the most sprightly and enterprising of the country, was too much taken up with the direful news from Baltimore to even make a note of Jack Sprague's expulsion, and the soldier boy was spared that mortification. Nor did he meet the tearful lament and heart-broken remonstrance at home, to which he had looked forward with lively dread. His friends in the village of Acredale were so astonished by his blue regimentals that he reached the homestead door unquestioned. His mother, at the dining-room window, caught sight of ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... world; the eye of light and the heart of fire; "the angel nature in the angel name." And yet amid his fadeless art he faded away; and at the deathless shrines which he left behind the admirer of his genius is left to lament his ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... humiliating repose, which nothing but the preceding calamities would reconcile to the dispirited few who survived them. We allow that even this evil is worth the risk to men of honour when rational liberty is at stake, as in the present case we confess and lament that ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... for about five minutes. He was holding on hard by the mane, his trousers were up to his knees, and his face was horribly pale. On my asking him why he loitered behind so, he owned, with a dismal sigh, that he was half afraid of the horse. "Afraid of the horse, sir!" was poor Angelo's lament: "Very wicked horse, sir—fell from a horse, sir—at Scutari, sir—broke three ribs, sir—and in hospital ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham

... pushed it forward, till, as we noticed, it got to Friedrich in few minutes, on the review-ground at Strehlen; right welcome to him, among the manoeuvrings there. Protestant Breslau or cordwainer Doblin cannot lament such a result; still less dare the devout Old Ladies of Quality openly lament, who are trembling to the heart, poor old creatures, though no evil came of it to them; penitent, let off for the fright; checking ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... Lament thy loss, sad sister of the West: Not one, but many nations with thee weep; Cherish thy martyr on thy wounded breast, And lay him with thy Washington to sleep. Earth holds no fitter sepulcher to keep His royal heart—one of thy kings to be Who reign even ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various

... inspiration are well known. The Muse forbids him to attempt the epic strain or the praise of Augustus and Agrippa. In the face of grand themes like these, his genius is slight. He will not essay even the strain of Simonides in the lament for an Empire stained by land and sea with the blood of fratricidal war. His themes shall be rather the feast and the mimic battles of revelling youths and maidens, the making of love in the grots of Venus. His lyre shall be jocose, his plectrum ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman

... practical dealing with the fact; till he cast that statement out of him, and reject it as an unclean poisonous thing, he can have no success in dealing with the fact. If such spoken divergence from the truth be involuntary, we lament it as a misfortune; and are entitled, at least the speaker of it is, to lament it extremely as the most palpable of all misfortunes, as the indubitablest losing of his way, and turning aside from the goal instead of pressing ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle

... Rustem did as he was bid; and when next he fought with Isfendiyar, he shot the arrow at him, and it pierced his eye, and he died. Great was the mourning for Isfendiyar. For the space of one year men ceased not to lament for him, and for many years they shed bitter tears for that arrow, and they said, "The glory of Iran hath been ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... chase out the other with great injury. Thereafter within three suns it behoves this to fall, and the other to surmount through the force of one who even now is tacking. It will hold high its front long time, keeping the other under heavy burdens, however it may lament and be shamed thereat. Two men are just, but there they are not heeded; Pride, Envy, Avarice are the three sparks that have ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri

... accomplish nothing. God hinders and resists man's work when he will not trust him. Hence God can grant no success or favor to that which is founded on human wisdom or on trust in human powers. This is a truth men must finally perceive by experience, and they must lament because ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther

... occurrence has been much commented on. Poetic fancy would hardly have chosen such a theme, and these Sonnets seem to be certainly based on an actual occurrence. And if so, certainly we may construe them very literally; and read literally they certainly appear to be an old man's lament at having been superseded by a ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson

... use. And Mrs Grantly when she went to her bed could only lament in her own mind over what, in discussing the matter afterwards with her sister, she called the cross-grainedness of men. "They are as like each other as two peas," she said, "and though each of them wished to be generous, neither ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... technique the catastrophe comes with terrible speed—and she is led, not to marriage, but to chains on the captor's galley. Her grief is expressed in a long soliloquy somewhat too reminiscent of Ariadne's lament in Catullus. Finally, Amphitrite in pity transforms the captive girl into a bird, the Ciris, and Zeus as a reward for his devout life releases Nisus, also transforming him into a bird of prey, ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank

... youth the full religious significance of Virgil's poem. Carried away by his headstrong nature, he yielded to the heart-rending charm of the romantic story: he lived it, literally, with the heroine. When his schoolmasters desired him to elaborate the lament of the dying Queen Dido in Latin prose, what he wrote had a veritable quiver of anguish. Without the least defence against lust and the delusions of the heart, he spent intellectually and in a single outburst all ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... brave and honourable men become the dupes of heated imaginations and erroneous opinions, which, urging them to effect an amelioration of some grievances, incur the penalty of imparting greater ones! General Peppe is liked by all who know him, though all lament the monomania that has gained such an ascendency over his mind. His brother, General Florestan Peppe at Naples, whom we esteem so much, is one of the most excellent men ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... and branch. "If a Government emanating from England," wrote Mr. Mackenzie, "can cherish such a corrupt, such a Star Chamber crew, then the days of the infamous Scroggs and Jeffries are returned upon us; and we may lament for ourselves, for our wives and for our children, that the British Constitution is, in Canada, a phantom to delude to destruction, instead of being the day-star of ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... flower, or a mushroom, and off he went, sought, found, and brought back the identical article required. "Now, sing," said the poacher, and the dog began to sing; not, indeed, exactly like Mario, but he produced a kind of melodious growl, a sort of improvised musical lament over his solitary life, which had its charm. Most poachers are exceedingly fond of music, and as they are always singing in their leisure moments, of course their dog joins them; so that when they are both in the humour for it, they execute duets in the depths of the forest that make ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... had great talents) to go into employments of state, where he must be exposed to the snares of ambition. Innocence of life and great ability were the distinguishing parts of his character; the latter, he had often observed, had led to the destruction of the former, and he used frequently to lament that great and good had not the same signification. He was an excellent husbandman, but had resolved not to exceed such a degree of wealth; all above it he bestowed in secret bounties many years after the sum he aimed at for his own use was attained. Yet he did not slacken his industry, but ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... Love, how regarded. As a Mystery. Burns' lament. As an Illusion. An Impulse. A Weakness. A Disease. Romantic views of Love. A Fatalism. "Matches made in Heaven." Some say, "Love can be Suppressed." Associated with Lower Propensities. A theme for Jesting and Sport. Quotation, shewing ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... a defiant deed!" cried Walt Whitman, as I quoted in the last essay. He was thinking, perhaps, of Harper's Ferry and of John Brown hanging on the crab-apple tree, while his soul went marching on. It is the lament of all writers and speakers who are driven by inward compulsion to be something more than artists in words, and who seek to jog the slow-pacing world more hurriedly forward. How long had preachers, essayists, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... I lament to say that the loss of killed and wounded on our side has been severe, as will be seen by the accompanying return; that on the part of the enemy must have been great, but the exact number I have not been able to ascertain. Several hundreds of prisoners were taken, ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth

... countenance, Sosia, so modest, so charming, that nothing could surpass. As she appeared to me to lament beyond the rest, and as she was of a figure handsome and genteel beyond the other women, I approached the female attendants;[36] I inquired who she was. They said that she was the sister of Chrysis. It instantly struck my mind: "Ay, ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... his cries and managed to throw out for a third or fourth time, his sorrowful lament that he was a poor unfortunate who ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... at a modern party, a circle of matrons sit in edifying conclave, and lament the degeneracy ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... Smith, and this same unfortunate Captain Wright, were confined in our State prison of the Temple! It is with Governments as with individuals, they ought to be just before they are generous. Had you in 1797, or in 1798, not endured our outrages so patiently, you would not now have to lament, nor we to blush for, the untimely ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... admire with me that beautiful monument erected on a sheet of paper and consecrated to the conquest of reason and labour, especially in connection with human rights and property, the basis for the well-being of social life; but, lament and deplore with me its palpable nullity when brought to practice and you will again see that the laws were made for the people and not ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... in a tremulous hand and in crooked lines, attracted Rafael's attention. He could half make their meaning out, but Leonora would never let him finish reading them. It was an amorous, desperate lament; a cry of racking passion condemned to disappointment, writhing in isolation like a wild beast in its ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... great prose. With the exception of Henry James and Hawthorne, Poe is our only master of pure prose. We lament our dearth of poets. With the exception of Lowell, Poe is our only great poet. Poe found short story writing a bungling makeshift. He left it a perfect art. He wrote the first perfect short stories in the English ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... cloud-gathering Zeus who gave her to Hades, her father's brother, to be called his buxom wife. And Hades seized her and took her loudly crying in his chariot down to his realm of mist and gloom. Yet, goddess, cease your loud lament and keep not vain anger unrelentingly: Aidoneus, the Ruler of Many, is no unfitting husband among the deathless gods for your child, being your own brother and born of the same stock: also, for honour, he has that third share which he received ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod

... arrangements also for Kunti's performing the last rites of Madri in such a style as pleaseth her. And let Madri's body be so carefully wrapped up that neither the Sun nor Vayu (god of wind) may behold it. Lament not for the sinless Pandu. He was a worthy king and hath left behind him five heroic sons equal ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... modern Englishmen alone that he will appeal. He powerfully affected, it may be presumed, the English Renaissance which succeeded him. Spenser—thirty years after his death—was moved to the translation of his famous lament for Rome, and no one can read the sonnets to which he gave their final form without catching the same note in the great English cycle of the generation after him—the close of the sixteenth and the opening ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc

... apparance of the hugenesse thereof yeelded sights enough to entertaine our mens eyes: yet the pitifull obiect of so many bodies slaine and dismembred could not but draw ech mans eye to see, and heart to lament, and hands to helpe those miserable people, whose limnes were so torne with the violence of shot, and paine made grieuous with the multitude of woundes. No man could almost steppe but vpon a dead carkase or a bloody floore, but specially about the helme, where very many of them ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... There is a difference between our aims: Thou clingest to this world of transiency, But I seek the Etern. Thou seest not The misery of life, for thou art happy— Happy at least at present, though the next Moment may find thee writhing in lament. I seek a place of refuge whence I can Extend my hand to help those in distress. I will attain the state of Buddhahood To bring ...
— The Buddha - A Drama in Five Acts and Four Interludes • Paul Carus

... "I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another law in my members, which warreth against the law of my mind.... O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" That was the lament of the thinking sensitive man regarding the soul's imprisonment in matter; the disgust of human nature ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg

... with great exultation, and diligently sought to console me, but all in vain. O God, who dost judge justice itself, in what venom of the spirit, in what bitterness of mind, did I blame even Thee for my shame, accusing Thee in my madness! Full often did I repeat the lament of St. Anthony: "Kindly Jesus, where wert Thou?" The sorrow that tortured me, the shame that overwhelmed me, the desperation that wracked my mind, all these I could then feel, but even now I can find no words to express them. Comparing these new sufferings of my ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard

... admonitions he has received, cannot reasonably be expected to "change his hand, or check his pride," upon the suggestion of far weightier monitors than we can pretend to be. Inveterate habit must now have given a kind of sanctity to the errors of early taste; and the very powers of which we lament the perversion, have probably become incapable of any other application. The very quantity, too, that he has written, and is at this moment working up for publication upon the old pattern, makes it almost hopeless to look for any change ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... live in discontent, yielding obedience to none. But at length a great sorrow fell upon him, for his wife, who was dear unto him, died, and she had been ill but three days. Loudly did he lament her death, and heavy was ...
— Celtic Tales - Told to the Children • Louey Chisholm

... an Eisteddfod that had been held in days gone by on a hill five miles from the Callow, called God's Little Mountain, and crowned by a chapel. She had listened, swaying and weeping to the surge and lament of his harp, and when he won the harper's prize and laid it in her lap she had consented to be married in the chapel at the end of the Eisteddfod week. That was nineteen years ago, and she was fled like the leaves and the birds ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... by Guercino (Louvre), the Virgin and St. Peter lament the death of the Saviour. The Mother, with her clasped hands resting on her knees, appears lost in resigned sorrow: she mourns her Son. Peter, weeping, as with a troubled grief, seems to mourn at once his Lord and Master, and his own weak denial. This picture ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson

... those white locks thinly spread Round the bald polish of that honored head: No more that meek, that suppliant look in prayer, Nor that pure faith that gave it force, are there: But he is blest, and I lament no more, A wise good man, contented to be ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper



Words linked to "Lament" :   vocal, poem, lamenter, kvetch, express emotion, threnody, complain, lamentation, coronach, grieve, elegy, bewail, deplore, song, requiem, bemoan, plaint, complaint, plain, dirge



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