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Battlement   /bˈætəlmənt/  /bˈætəlmɛnt/   Listen
Battlement

noun
1.
A rampart built around the top of a castle with regular gaps for firing arrows or guns.  Synonyms: crenelation, crenellation.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Battlement" Quotes from Famous Books



... raised (By which fine phrase I'd have you know, The cock had just begun to crow) And gentle Zephyr, child of Boreas, Stole soft the hush of dewy leaves, And passing kissed the flowers to wakefulness. Thus, laden with their sweetness, Zephyr came O'er hill and dale, o'er battlement and wall, Into the sleeping town of Canalise, Through open lattice and through prison-bars, To kiss the cheek of sleeping Innocence And fevered brows of prisoners forlorn, Who, stirring 'neath sweet Zephyr's soft caress, Dreamed themselves young, with ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... morning sun On leaguer'd castle wall, When bastion, tower, and battlement, Seemed nodding ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... very houses seem To groan, and shrieks, and sobbing and the cries Of wailing women pierce the vaulted skies. 'Twas e'en as though all Carthage or old Tyre Were falling, stormed by ruthless enemies, While over roof and battlement and spire And temples of the Gods ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... the Duke of Bedford. They would be magnificent for Strawberry-castle. Did I tell you that I have found a text in Deuteronomy to authorize my future battlements? "When thou buildest a new house, then shalt thou make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thy house, if any ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... in the willow thickets glimmered skeined veils of yellow and delicate crimson. The stream poured turbulently away from the snows of the mountains behind us. It went winding in many folds across the meadows into distance and smallness, and so vanished round the great red battlement of wall beyond. Upon this were falling the deep hues of afternoon—violet, rose, and saffron, swimming and meeting as if some prism had dissolved and flowed over the turrets and crevices of the sandstone. Far over there ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister

... beginning in such a world. There was a massive purple battlement on the sea, at a great distance, the last entrenchment of night; but a multitude of rays had stormed it, poured through clefts and chasms in the wall, and escaped to the Windhover on a broad road that was newly laid from the sky to this planet. The sun was at one end ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson

... Lieutenant who accompanied them. "With the fire coming at an angle, it is difficult for the enemy to get the exact position of our guns, and they are unable to follow the line of our fire with their own fire, and so cripple us. On the other hand, you notice that all trenches are either battlement shape or zig-zag." ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske

... crying sin in any expense, Should so besotted be, and lost To the fact that now, at public cost, Powder was being day by day Wantonly wasted, blown away);— Yes, he would ask, "with what intent But to perch the Greeks on a battlement From which they might o'erlook the town, The easier to batter it down, Which he had proved must be the case (If it hadn't already taken place): He called on his readers to fear and dread it, Whilst he wrote it,—whilst ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... built in steps, battlement-wise, as it is called, or, according to others, altar-wise. After laying the stones for the base, they raised the remaining stones to their places by means of machines formed of short wooden planks. The first machine raised ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various

... and gesticulating with dramatic gestures into space. This was our Vahtimestari. From his exalted position, with one of the most beautiful panoramas eye could wish lying at his feet—resting on a famous battlement, that had withstood the ravages of love and war—he evolved his magic verse. Truly no scene could be more inspiring, no motive more sublime, for even we humble humdrum matter-of-fact Englishwomen felt almost inspired to tempt the ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... have words, and speak to ye of heaven, Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, And shadows forth its glory. There is given Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power And magic in the ruined battlement, For which the palace of the present hour Must yield its pomp, and wait till ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... make the story short, the Hazzards and I returned to Schloss Rothhoefen in some haste, primarily for the purpose of inspecting it from dungeon to battlement. I forgot to mention that, being very tired after the climb up the steep, we got no further on our first visit than the great baronial hall, the dining-room and certain other impressive apartments customarily kept open for the inspection of visitors. ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... fall in a broad green slope from the old Cathedral battlement down to the River Pol. Their long stretches of meadow are scattered with trees, some of the oldest oaks in Glebeshire, and they are finally bounded by the winding path of the Rope Walk that skirts the river bank. Along the Rope Walk in March and April the daffodils first, and ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole

... by the battlement and the stories were told. They were stories of the small grains lying hid in the dark earth waiting for the golden heat of the sun to draw them forth into life until they covered the tilled fields with waving wheat to make ...
— The Land of the Blue Flower • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... described him. Suddenly a cloudy shadow passed over him, and he looked up, expecting to see a flight of cranes in the air; but the sky was clear and blue. While the young knight was still wondering, a long bright spear fell at his feet from a battlement of the ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... others wretched! who abide In such a mansion, as scarce thought finds words To speak of, better had ye here on earth Been flocks or mountain goats. As down we stood In the dark pit beneath the giants' feet, But lower far than they, and I did gaze Still on the lofty battlement, a voice Bespoke me thus: "Look how thou walkest. Take Good heed, thy soles do tread not on the heads Of thy poor brethren." Thereupon I turn'd, And saw before and underneath my feet A lake, whose frozen surface liker seem'd To glass ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... having this delight and loving purpose directed towards us like a sunbeam, the various great things that a chorus of psalmists say that it will do for a man. Here is one of their triumphant utterances: 'Thou wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt Thou compass him as with a shield.' That crystal battlement, if I may so vary the figure, is round a man, keeping far away from him all manner of real evil, and filling his quiet heart as he stands erect behind the rampart, with the sense of absolute security. That is one of the blessings ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... its dark ascending firs, to its crown of silvery birches, above which, as often as the slowly circling road brought him to the other side, he saw rise like a helmet the gray mass of the fortress. Turret and tower, pinnacle and battlement, appeared and disappeared as he climbed. Not until at last he stood almost on the top, and from an open space beheld nearly the whole front, could he tell what it was like. It was a grand pile, but looked a gloomy one to ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... hid, Round many a rocky pyramid, Shooting abruptly from the dell Its thunder-splintered pinnacle; Round many an insulated mass, The native bulwarks of the pass, Huge as the tower which builders vain Presumptuous piled on Shinar's plain. The rocky summits, split and rent, Formed turret, dome, or battlement. Or seemed fantastically set With cupola or minaret, Wild crests as pagod ever decked, Or mosque of Eastern architect. Nor were these earth-born castles bare, Nor lacked they many a banner fair; For, from their shivered brows displayed, Far o'er the unfathomable ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... all Persian cities it was enclosed in a mud wall and a moat. Since then the city has so increased that an extension has been made to an outer boundary some ten miles in circumference, and marked by an uneven ditch, the excavated sand of which is thrown up to form a sort of battlement. Twelve gates, opened at sunrise and closed at night, give access to the town. The citadel, the ancient part of the city, contains the principal public buildings, the private residences of high officials, and the Shah's Palace. To the south of this are found the ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... wondrous monument, And shadows forth its glory. There is given Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, A Spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power And magic in the ruined battlement, For which the Palace of the present hour Must yield its pomp, and wait till Ages ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... of the prince of Doppelkinn rested in the very heart of the celebrated vineyards. Like all German castles I ever saw or heard of, it was a relic of the Middle Ages, with many a crumbling, useless tower and battlement. It stood on the south side of a rugged hill which was gashed by a narrow but turbulent stream, in which lurked the rainbow trout that lured the lazy man from his labors afield. (And who among us shall cast a stone at the lazy man? Not I!) If you are fortunate ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath

... on our return, the point where we had crossed the line of marked trees the day before, the question arose whether we should still trust ourselves to this line, or follow our own trail back to the spring and the battlement of rocks on the top of the mountain, and thence to the rock where the guide had left us. We decided in favor of the former course. After a march of three quarters of an hour the blazed trees ceased, and we ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... the Restoration. To the left, the familiar words "Morley's Hotel" designate an edifice about half windows, where the plebeian traveller may sit and contemplate Northumberland House opposite, and the straight-tailed lion of the Percys surmounting the lofty battlement which crowns its broad facade. We could describe and criticize the statue as well as if we stood under it, but other travellers have done that. Where are all the people that ought to be seen here? Hardly more than three or four figures are to be made out; the rest were moving, and left no ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... ascend into sunlight. Perhaps you stroll to some place where the air is better, but which may still have a story quite as exciting as the catastrophe of the imperial bakehouse: perhaps to Bertholdsdorf; a pretty little market-town with a tall-steepled church, and a half ruined battlement, situated on the hill slope about six miles to the south of Vienna. It forms a pretty summer day's ramble. Its chronicler is the worthy Markt-richter, or Town-justice, Jacob Trinksgeld; and his unvarnished story, freely ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... perfectly preserved city and fortress of the middle ages. Here has been none of the Vandalism of Vauban, Cohorn, and those mechanical-pated fellows, who, with their Dutch dyke-looking parapets, made such havoc of donjons and picturesque turrets in Europe. Here is every variety of mediaeval battlement; so perfect is the illusion, that one wonders the waiter's horn should be mute, and the walls devoid ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton

... shouted we, some of us discharging our pieces to add to the uproar, while one man exploded a swivel gun which stood on the seaward battlement. ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... in square panelled pinnacles, surmounted by crocketted ogee canopies. From these buttresses spring graceful flying-buttresses, with pierced spandrels running to the clerestory walls. On the northern side the plain parapet has over it a pierced battlement. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Philip Walsingham Sergeant

... the afternoon at a picturesque little place called Prainha—prettier than any I had seen so far, because of its frontage battlement, with its numerous staircases to allow the people of the various houses to go down to the water. A tiny church stood farther ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... the Governor and the chief people rode out to receive us. Our horses' hoofs soon rang under a ruined battlement, and we entered in state through the dark tunnels. Horses were neighing, sabres were clanking; it was a noisy, confusing, picturesque scene. We tented for the night in the midst of the grand court of the ruins. In the morning the ladies of the Governor's harim paid me a visit ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... only hear the torrent, and the wind, And eagle's shriek. There is a precipice That seems a fragment of some mighty wall, Built by the hand that fashioned the old world, To separate its nations, and thrown down When the flood drowned them. To the north, a path Conducts you up the narrow battlement. Steep is the western side, shaggy and wild With mossy trees, and pinnacles of flint, And many a hanging crag. But, to the east, Sheer to the vale go down the bare old cliffs,— Huge pillars, that in middle ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant

... said the novice, tottering towards and grasping hold of one of the carved pinnacles which adorned the proud battlement. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... until she reached the open, where a double row of trees on each side marked the edge of a big square, large enough for the drilling of an army. Along one side of the square there ran the high brick wall, topped with a kind of battlement, that guarded the Maharajah's palace grounds from the eyes ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... has risen above the edge of the horizon, and she sees a noble old castle. Its summit of tower, watchtower and battlement, glimmers faintly in the moonlight. This ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu

... crowd; But they dared not trust the people, So he might not speak aloud. But he look'd up toward heaven, And it all was clear and blue, And in the liquid ether The eye of God shone through. Yet a black and murky battlement Lay resting on the hill, As though the thunder slept therein, All else ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French

... well as to Attila and the Huns, were they bound by the ties of guest-friendship, and in happier days Theodoric had ridden with Gunther and with Hagen, to test the mettle of their knights against the chivalry of Britain. So Theodoric and his men stood on the battlement of his palace, which looked down on the garden of Attila, and watched from afar the ghastly conflict. But at length they saw the good Margrave Rudiger, the ally of the Amals on so many a hard-fought battle-field, fall by the hand of his own daughter's husband, the young prince, Giselher; and then ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... which all but cost him his life. Yet, so strange is the complex nature of the Englishman, this man, whom the breath of war could rouse to a courage almost superhuman, spent his leisure in the toils of artistic photography, and evinced more demonstrative pleasure over a successful plate than in a battlement of arms ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... horse unbroken When first he feels the rein, The furious river struggled hard, And tossed his tawny mane, 470 And burst the curb, and bounded, Rejoicing to be free, And whirling down, in fierce career, Battlement, and plank, and pier, Rushed ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson

... men at arms behind, marching forward to the attack in strong columns, three in number. They came on steadily, and some of us would fain have shot at them; but it was strictly forbidden, and we were obliged to remain motionless, sheltering ourselves behind the battlement as we best might. As the Southron formed their long ranks into lines, each man occupying his place as by magic, and preparing to cover themselves by large shields, called pavesses, which they planted before them, I again felt a strange breathlessness, and some desire ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... the attack continued and was repulsed. Meanwhile, unknown to the Spaniards, the besieged burghers were silently and swiftly building inside the ravelin a solid half-moon shaped battlement. On the 31st of December, the last day of 1572, the great assault was made. "The attack was unexpected, but the forty or fifty sentinels defended the walls while they sounded the alarm. The tocsin ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... the menace of night; Then a long, lonely, leaden mere Backed by a desolate fell, As by a spectral battlement; and then, Low-brooding, interpenetrating all, A vast, gray, listless, inexpressive sky, So beggared, so incredibly bereft Of starlight and the song of racing worlds, It might have bellied down upon the Void Where as in terror Light was ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley

... fires, Whitehall was a city of palaces reaching far into St. James, with a fleet of royal barges at float below the river stairs. From Scotland Yard to Bridge Street the royal ensign blew to the wind above tower and parapet and battlement. I mind under the archway that spanned little Whitehall Street M. Radisson ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... They missed him, the populace shouted, and the fellow, taking off his cap and waving it in triumph, still climbed on. I next fired both my pistols at him; which was the luckier of the two I cannot tell, but I saw him stagger just as he planted his foot on the battlement; he was evidently hit, and a general yell from the multitude told that they saw it too; he made a convulsive spring to secure himself, fell back, lost his hold, and plunged headlong from a height of a hundred and fifty feet to the ground! Another tried the same ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... dizzy steps descending, Sometimes in narrow circuit bending, Sometimes in platform broad extending, Its varying circle did combine Bulwark, and bartizan, and line, And bastion, tower, and vantage-coign. Above the booming ocean leant The far-projecting battlement; The billows burst, in ceaseless ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston

... crossing in their flight. Long avenues opened out of it, precipitous deep cuttings leading into the night. The steep, shadowy masses of building seemed piled sky-high, like a city of the air; here the gleam of some golden white facade, there some aerial battlement crowned with stars, with clusters, and points, and rings of flame that made a lucid twilight of the dark above them. Over all was an ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... Stanley's thoughts became indistinct; the stars seemed to lose their radiance, as covered by a light mist; a dark cloud appearing, in his half dormant fancy, to take the gigantic proportions of a man, hovered on the battlement. It became smaller and smaller, but still it seemed a cloud, through which the moonlight gleamed; but a thrill passed through him, as if telling of some impalpable and indefinable object of dread. With a sudden effort he shook off the lethargy ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... summit of the central tower caught the last reflection of the declining orb. Leonard watched the rosy gleam till it disappeared, and then steadfastly regarded the reverend pile as its hue changed from grey to black, until at length each pinnacle and buttress, each battlement and tower, was lost in one vast indistinct mass. Night had fallen upon the city—a night destined to be more fatal than any that had preceded it; and yet it was so calm, so beautiful, so clear, that it was scarcely possible to imagine that it was unhealthy. The destroying ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... houses, its monkish hospitium upon the left, where good ale may still be quaffed, and its great square-keeped castle upon the right, no gray and grim skeleton of ruin, but very quick and alert, with blazoned banner flying free, and steel caps twinkling from the battlement. A row of booths extended from the castle gate to the high street, and two doors from the Church of the Trinity was that of Thorold the goldsmith, a rich burgess and ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the aid of my liberality; but all this did not allay one spark of the fire kindled in my soul for the lovely Calista; and I was impatient for night, against which time I was preparing an engine to mount the battlement, for so it was that divided the garden from the street, rather than a wall: all things fitted to my purpose, I fixed myself at the window that looked directly towards her sashes, and had the satisfaction to see her leaning there, and ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... lies by Chillon's walls: A thousand feet in depth below Its massy waters meet and flow; Thus much the fathom-line was sent 110 From Chillon's snow-white battlement,[11] Which round about the wave inthralls: A double dungeon wall and wave Have made—and like a living grave. Below the surface of the lake[12] The dark vault lies wherein we lay: We heard it ripple night and day; Sounding o'er our heads it knocked; And I have felt the winter's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... were of great thickness, and the windows, or slits which served the purpose of windows, seemed rather calculated to afford the defenders the means of employing missile weapons, than for admitting air or light to the apartments within. A small battlement projected over the walls on every side, and afforded farther advantage of defence by its niched parapet, within which arose a steep roof, flagged with grey stones. A single turret at one angle, defended by a door studded with huge iron nails, rose ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... stairs lead, in the thickness of the walls, from tower to tower, and the dim corridors and dizzying bartizans are made safe to the most timid of Cockneys by stout wooden banisters, that enable you to stand as securely on a crumbling battlement as on the top of Salisbury plain. We saw the courts and quadrangles, admired the splendid windows, and only wondered at the lowness of the ceilings of some of the principal rooms, as from floor to floor could not have been more than seven feet and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... delay, large difference between leaving things unfinished because we have more to do, or because we are satisfied with what we have done. Tintoret, who prayed hard, and hardly obtained, that he might be permitted, the charge of his colors only being borne, to paint a new built house from base to battlement, was not one to shun labor, it is the pouring in upon him of glorious thoughts in inexpressible multitude that his sweeping hand follows so fast. It is as easy to know the slightness of earnest haste from ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin

... ships of the stranger, I in the midst of them bound; and, my child, thou go with them also, Doom'd for the far-off shore and the tarnishing toil of the bondman, Slaving for lord unkind. Or perchance some remorseless Achaian Hurl from the gripe of his hand, from the battlement down to perdition, Raging revenge for some brother perchance that was slaughter'd of Hector, Father, it may be, or son; for not few of the race of Achaia Seiz'd broad earth with their teeth, when they sank from the handling of Hector; For not mild was thy father, O ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... I exclaimed suddenly, as looking up from my block-book I saw the figure of a slight man in the careless morning-dress of a gentleman, crossing the ruinous bridge in our direction, with considerable caution, upon the precarious footing of the battlement, which alone ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... until you are well beyond the granite outposts that there bursts upon you an immense open area,—a sort of amphitheatre in which the Druids might have held their weird ritual. Directly ahead you see a battlement of boulders projected by some immemorial upheaval. Intrenched between them is the spot where Rhodes rests and which is marked by a brass plate bearing the words: "Here Lie the Remains of Cecil John Rhodes." In his will he directed that the site be chosen and even ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... short and easy, and it was not long before the captain of the guard looked down upon the lights of the castle gleaming through the gathering gloom. But instead of being, as was its wont, lighted from highest battlement to flanking tower, only one or two lamps could be discerned shining out of that vast ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... Not high-raised battlement or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate; Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned; Not bays and broad-armed ports, Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; Not starred and spangled courts, Where ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... eleven physicians, one of whom was a European gentleman of education, Claudius Maille, of Bourges.[26] The chief favourite of the eleven was, however, a Persian, 'who one day threw his wife from the top of a battlement to the ground in a fit of jealousy. He thought the fall would kill her, but she had only a few ribs broken; whereupon the kindred of the woman came and demanded justice at the feet of the governor. The governor, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... Christian and he had hardly spoken to each other. Below the battlement on which they sat, in a railed gallery with little tables, Dawney and Greta were playing dominoes, two soldiers drinking beer, and at the top of a flight of stairs the Custodian's wife sewing at a garment. Christian said suddenly: "I ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Pathfinder and Cap ascended again to the roof, with a view to reconnoitre the state of things once more on the island. This part of the blockhouse had a low battlement around it, which afforded a considerable protection to those who stood in its centre; the intention having been to enable marksmen to lie behind it and to fire over its top. By making proper use, therefore, ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... extinguished, and then they went up to the platform above. They fastened one end of the rope to the battlement, having first tied knots ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty

... Mark, and the two lads hurried up a little winding staircase on to the top of the inner gate-tower, from whence they could go along one side of the little yard, hidden by the crenellated battlement, till they were about five-and-twenty feet from where the men were ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn

... Spirit Approached the overhanging battlement, 240 Below lay stretched the boundless universe! There, far as the remotest line That limits swift imagination's flight. Unending orbs mingled in mazy motion, Immutably fulfilling 245 Eternal Nature's law. Above, below, around, The circling systems ...
— The Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... a horse unbroken, when first he feels the rein, The furious river struggled hard, and tossed his tawny mane, And burst the curb, and bounded, rejoicing to be free, And battlement, and plank, and pier ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various

... went up into an high battlement, and led with her twelve gentlewomen; and when they were above, one of the gentlewomen cried, and said: Ah, Sir Bors, gentle knight have mercy on us all, and suffer my lady to have her will, and if ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... before this. I'll not blame Maggie for not liking him; and I wad be as weel pleased for Maggie to bide single, till I hae my ain manse to marry her from. Now I willna hae my life and prospects wrecked for women's battlement and quarrels;" and then David very foolishly spoke of Dr. Balmuto's coldness to him; and on this subject David got warm and eloquent, and Aunt Janet perceived that the minister was disposed ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr

... the border of L'Ancresse Common, with no view of the sea, but with the soft, undulating brows and hollows of the common lying before it, and a broken battlement of rocks ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... ultra-Dutch, being low, angular, fastidiously neat, and all erected with their gables to the street. Each had its ugly and inconvenient entrance, termed a stoop, its vane or weathercock, its dormer-windows, and its graduated battlement-walls. Near the apex of one of the latter, a little iron crane projected into the street. A small boat, of the same metal, swung from its end,—a sign that the building to which it was ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... bygone power and pride. Pavilions and baths, grottoes and fish-ponds, set in the tangled verdure of a neglected garden, surround the arcaded parapets of a colossal tower. Green plumes of fern wave from wall and battlement, velvet moss and orange lichen tapestry the blackened stone, and matted creepers sway their woven curtains in the evening wind. A Dancing Hall, which formerly rang with the weird music accompanying the "woven paces and waving hands" of ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... Decorated period by the insertion of three slender windows, each having two lights with a quatrefoil above. Above the windows comes the moulded string or cornice continued from the transept, and above this the pierced merlons of the Decorated battlement are again very broad in proportion to the embrasures. Instead of being built up, the exposed arches of the triforium have here been glazed. The clearstorey resembles that of the transept, but the corbel table is surmounted ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett

... he procured some days before from the turnkey, and fastening the stone firmly to one end, threw that end over the wall. Now the wall had (as walls of great strength mostly have) an overhanging sort of battlement on either side; and the stone, when flung over and drawn to the tether of the cord to which it was attached, necessarily hitched against this projection; and thus the cord was as it were fastened to the wall, and Tomlinson was enabled by it to draw himself up to the top ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... have smaller transoms, until the whole surface of the window becomes divided into a series of panels, the heads of which being arched, are trefoiled or cinquefoiled. In the later windows the transoms at the top are often furnished with a small ornamental battlement, causing the mullions ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath

... called Flambard, or Firebrand. He was represented as a devouring lion. Still the great edifice grew up, and Gundulf, who lived to the age of fourscore, saw his great keep completed from basement to battlement. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various

... now on the inside of the highest battlement of the great tower. It was formerly on the outside, some feet from the top, and those who wished to kiss it, were obliged to be let down by their heels—which being a rather disagreeable and dangerous process, Mr. Jeffries had ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood

... of the sacred hall You hear the trumpet's call, At dawn upon the silvery battlement, Re-echo through the deep And bid the sons of God to rise from sleep, And with a shout to hail The sunrise on the city of the Grail: The music that proud Lucifer in Hell Missed more than all the joys that he forwent. You hear the solemn bell At ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various

... apt to conclude that sturdy beggars can bear stout denials. Now we come upon the ruins of a square stone tower, which anciently formed a portion of the public baths; and here an old Arabian gate, arch and battlement still standing. Near the Alameda another is seen, and gardens, once connected by a subterranean passage with the distant Alhambra, away on the hill. Here an arch and there a crumbling column, all souvenirs of the ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... or tempest bent, While yet may frown one battlement, Demands and daunts the stranger's eye, Each ivied arch and pillar lone Pleads haughtily for ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes

... conspicuous object on the north-eastern side of the basin; and another hill close to it being equally remarkable was called Mount Waterloo. These two hills rise precipitously from the plain; and being capped by a wall-like battlement bear a strong resemblance to Steep ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King

... little or nothing to show; like Flers, it has risen to some modern importance through manufactures. The chief church, St Martin, has already struck us on our approach by its stately tower of late Gothic such as in England we might have looked to see crowned with battlement and pinnacles, but which here is finished with a high roof bearing statues on its ridge. Beside the tower there is something, one hardly knows what, a very high roof and a kind of spire. When we come near, we find that the church, though very short, has two western towers. The northern one ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman

... on the battlement, Despair and death among the soldiers sent; You the bold Omrah tumbled from the wall, And shouts of victory ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... her mind; nor was her father less composed, but went about, wringing his hands and exclaiming—"Oh! poor Sergeant Wilson! poor Sergeant Wilson!" At this instant, the fire had made its way to the upper apartment, and had thrown light upon a human head and shoulders, which leaned over the decayed battlement. Every one was horror-struck except the inhuman soldiery, who collected around the burning pile, and shouted up their profane and insulting jests, in the face of the poor perishing being, who, from his footing immediately giving way, was precipitated into the flames, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... was enormous, a huge battlement of a font in dead white stone with wreaths of carved ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... recovered his equanimity, Mr Dorrit, in his snug corner, fell to castle-building as he rode along. It was evident that he had a very large castle in hand. All day long he was running towers up, taking towers down, adding a wing here, putting on a battlement there, looking to the walls, strengthening the defences, giving ornamental touches to the interior, making in all respects a superb castle of it. His preoccupied face so clearly denoted the pursuit in which he was engaged, that every cripple ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... a difference in architecture betwixt the English and Scottish towers. The latter usually have upon the top a projecting battlement, with interstices, anciently called machicoules, betwixt the parapet and the wall, through which stones or darts might be hurled upon the assailants. This kind of fortification is less ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott

... cried De Bracy to the soldiers around him; "do ye call yourselves cross-bowmen, and let these two dogs keep their station under the walls of the castle? Heave over the coping stones from the battlement, an better may not be. Get pickaxe and levers, and down with that huge pinnacle!" pointing to a heavy piece of stone carved-work that projected ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... crossed to the other side of the isthmus. We then found that the path led to the foot of the rock, formerly island, of the keep, and thence in a zigzag up the face of it to the top. We followed it, and after a great climb reached a door in a modern battlement. Entering, we found ourselves amidst grass, and ruins haggard with age. We turned and surveyed the path by which we had come. It was steep and somewhat difficult. But the outlook was glorious. It was indeed one of God's mounts of vision upon which we stood. The thought, "O that Connie ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

... should do next, he saw three men separate from the knot of soldiers and ride towards the Towers, one of whom held a white cloth above his head in token of parley. Then Christopher went up into the little gateway turret, followed by Emlyn, who crouched down behind the brick battlement, so that she could see and hear without being seen. Having reached the further side of the moat, he who held the white cloth threw back the hood of his long cape, and they saw that it was the Abbot of Blossholme himself, also that his dark eyes flashed ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... the iron will That clutched and held the trembling hill! God lives and reigns! He built and lent The heights for freedom's battlement Where floats her flag in ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott

... almost gone before de Vasselot reached the base of the mound of half-shattered rock upon which the chateau had been built. The wall that had once been the outer battlement of the old stronghold was so fallen into disrepair that he anticipated no difficulty in finding a gap through which to pass within the enclosure where the house was hidden; but he walked right round and found no such breach. Where the wall of rock proved vulnerable, the masonry, ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman

... helped; for it is thy business to do thy duty like a soldier in the assault on a town. How, then, if being lame thou canst not mount up on the battlement alone, but with the help of another ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.

... the coyote barked afar All shadowy was the battlement. The ranch-boys huddled and grew pale, Youths who had come on riot bent. Forgot were pranks well-planned to sting. Behold there rose a ghostly king, And veils of ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay



Words linked to "Battlement" :   rampart, fortress, merlon, bulwark, wall, fort, crenelation, crenellation, crenel, crenelle



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