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Lightsome

adjective
1.
Moving easily and quickly; nimble.  Synonyms: light, tripping.  "A lightsome buoyant step" , "Walked with a light tripping step"
2.
Carefree and happy and lighthearted.  Synonyms: blithe, blithesome, light-hearted, lighthearted.  "A merry blithesome nature" , "Her lighthearted nature" , "Trilling songs with a lightsome heart"



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"Lightsome" Quotes from Famous Books



... tenderly through the language of the people; "sure whin I remimber your fair young face—your yellow hair, and the light that was in your eyes, acushla machree—but that's gone long ago—och, don't ax me to stop. Isn't your lightsome laugh, whin you wor young, in my ears? and your step that 'ud not bend the flower of the field—Kathleen, I can't, indeed I can't, bear to think of what you wor, nor of what you are now, when in the coorse of age and natur, but a small change ought to be upon you! Sure I ought to make ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... stories, if for no other purpose than that they might be of service to the poets and romancers who knew how to use them judiciously. He said that he did not intend even to stop to argue and debate disputed questions, but, "imploring divine assistance," to relate, "with plain and lightsome brevity," those ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... gas-light which gives almost a solar splendor to the nocturnal darkness of our cities; in the arts of Heating and Ventilation, which at once supply warmth for comfort and pure air for health; in the art of Building, from the hollowed trunk of a tree or the roof-shaped cabin, to those commodious and lightsome dwellings which betoken the taste and competence of our villages and cities; in the art of Copying or Printing, from the toilsome process of hand-copying, where the transcription of a single book was the labor of months or years, and sometimes almost of a life, to the power printing-press, ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... sir," said Joe, delighting in the vagueness of his rejoinder. "They ain't used to it, that's the truth; but laugh away, Miss, it'll do you good," he added benignly. Joe was of a cheerful spirit, notwithstanding his infirmities, and he foresaw lightsome days. ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... Outstripped in speed the mountaineer: Right up Ben Lomond could he press, And not a sob his toil confess. His form accorded with a mind Lively and ardent, frank and kind; A blither heart, till Ellen came Did never love nor sorrow tame; It danced as lightsome in his breast As played the feather on his crest. Yet friends, who nearest knew the youth His scorn of wrong, his zeal for truth And bards, who saw his features bold When kindled by the tales of old Said, were that youth to manhood grown, Not long should Roderick Dhu's ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... was of a moderate heat, and he was there rubbed and washed with various scented waters. After he had passed through several degrees of heat, he came out, quite a different man from what he was before. His skin was clear white and red, his body lightsome and free; and when he returned into the hall, he found, instead of his own, a suit, the magnificence of which astonished him. The genie helped him to dress, and when he had done, transported him back to his own ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... world's heart! It is because man's hope is so low, and his imaginations so poor, that he is earthly and evil. Wings for these unfledged hearts! Transformation for these grubs! Give us animation, inspiration, joy, faith! Give us enlivening, lightsome airs, to which our souls shall, on a sudden, begin to dance, keeping step with the angels! What else is worth having? Each one of these sordid sons of men—is he not a new-born Apollo, who waits only for the ambrosia from Olympus, to spring forth in divineness ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... alone hast made me dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the enemies ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... When they, in the final lap of their journey, arrived at the green hillside of Lochdrom, the weather was extremely inclement. Seeing a commodious shieling on the braeface, the young men entered, and one of them, with the object of driving dull care away, struck up a lightsome tune on his pipes. His two comrades at once began to fling their legs about and caper merrily. Soon, having succeeded in dancing themselves dry, they all agreed that female partners would be a great acquisition. The ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... dark is falling, And far the camp must be, Yet my heart it would be lightsome, If ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... precepts are given in order to direct man in the way of salvation, according to Ps. 18:9: "The commandment of the Lord is lightsome, enlightening the eyes." Now it is useless to direct anyone to what is impossible. Therefore it is not impossible to fulfill this precept in ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... and beasts and creeping things, the gardeners to sweep the dewy turf and unfold emerald velvet where the roller passes, the smoke of the great kitchen fire wreathing itself straight and high into the lightsome air. Lastly, up comes the flag over Mr. Tulkinghorn's unconscious head cheerfully proclaiming that Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock are in their happy home and that there is hospitality at the place ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... is, there's fruit on her lip, And her teeth flash as white as the crescent moon's tip, And her form and her step like the red-deer's go past— As lightsome, as ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... nosegays left by visitors long ago, which paled thus, sympathetically, at the decease of their old owners; for, in spite of its new-fashionedness, all this array is really less like a new thing than the last surviving result of all the more lightsome adornments of past times. Only, the very walls seem to cry out:—No! to make delicate insinuation, for a music, a conversation, nimbler than any we have known, or are likely to find here. For himself, ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater

... to back, with certain differences of structure that need not be described. Simple and severe, San Maurizio owes its architectural beauty wholly and entirely to purity of line and perfection of proportion. There is a prevailing spirit of repose, a sense of space, fair, lightsome, and adapted to serene moods of the meditative fancy in this building which is singularly at variance with the religious mysticism and imaginative grandeur of a Gothic edifice. The principal beauty of the ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... carrion. Black marauders among blithe birds of peace and joy, they watched like sable spirits near the nests, or on some near sea rocks, sombre and alone, blinked evilly at the tall bright cliffs and the lightsome legions nestling there. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the music float Along the gloaming lea; 'Tis sweet to hear the blackbird's note Come pealing frae the tree; To see the lambkins lightsome race— The speckled kid in wanton chase— The young deer cower in lonely place, Deep in her flowing den; But sweeter far the bonny face That ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... spoke; the other slipped adown the lightsome air of heaven, With wrapping cloak of mirky cloud about her ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil

... exhilarated me at once, and I began to feel more and more contented. Nothing was farther from my intention than to merely take a morning walk in the open air. What had the air to do with my lungs? I was strong as a giant; could stop a dray with my shoulders. A sweet, unwonted mood, a feeling of lightsome happy-go-luckiness took possession of me. I fell to observing the people I met and who passed me, to reading the placards on the wall, noted even the impression of a glance thrown at me from a passing tram-car, let each bagatelle, ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun

... been, this long, long while? Ah! the same sweet face, but not so pale; the same soft eye, but not so sad. I have never forgotten them or his quiet smile, but have seen them every day, side by side with those of my own dear children, dead and gone since I was a lightsome young creature.' Running on thus, and now holding Oliver from her to mark how he had grown, now clasping him to her and passing her fingers fondly through his hair, the good soul laughed and wept upon his ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... I imagine, that the new Surveyor had no great harm in him. So, with lightsome hearts and the happy consciousness of being usefully employed—in their own behalf at least, if not for our beloved country—these good old gentlemen went through the various formalities of office. Sagaciously under their spectacles, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... when I read books in which perfection is put before us with the goal obstructed by a thousand obstacles, my poor little head is quickly fatigued. I close the learned treatise, which tires my brain and dries up my heart, and I turn to the Sacred Scriptures. Then all becomes clear and lightsome—a single word opens out infinite vistas, perfection appears easy, and I see that it is enough to acknowledge our nothingness, and like children surrender ourselves into the Arms of the Good God. Leaving to great and lofty minds the beautiful books which I cannot understand, still ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)

... greet him with a smiling countenance. He might as well, he thought, avoid the expense of lodging: the library, fitted with an iron bedstead which he had remarked, in one of the upper chambers, would serve his purpose for the night; while in the dining-room, which was large, airy, and lightsome, looking on the square and garden, he might very agreeably pass his days, cook his meals, and study to bring himself to some proficiency in that art of painting which he had recently determined to adopt. It did not take him long to make the change: he had soon returned ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... his active benevolence. I could, however, have wished to hear him laugh once before we parted, perhaps forever. He did not, to the best of my recollection, even smile during the whole period that we were in company. I am afraid that a lightsome disposition and a relish for humor are not so common in those whose benevolence takes an active turn as in people of sentiment, who are always ready with their tears and abounding in passionate expressions of sympathy. Working philanthropy ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... of ornament in each portion of her dress, were quite in place with her. All this suited her, like the frank light in her eyes, the rallying smile about her lips, like her shaft-straight carriage and lightsome step. Caroline took her hand when she was dressed, hurried her downstairs, out of doors; and thus they sped through the fields, laughing as they went, and looking very much like a snow-white dove and gem-tinted bird of paradise ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... be imagined, the gayety of our company had been utterly checked by the coming of our sad guest. In the presence of such a wreck of human happiness, perhaps of human hope, what person of any sensibility could maintain a lightsome mood? Had it not been for one peculiarity,—a peculiarity, I am confident, all of us observed,—the depression of our spirits would have been as profound as it was universal. This peculiarity was the stranger's appetite. ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... whose tender faces spoke more of pity than of mirth. The wine flew to his brain as he drank it, and things about him seemed to reel and spin. Strains of fantastic music burst upon his ears: then, all in rhythm, the women joined their partners and whirled about him with a lightsome step. And, moving with it, his throbbing brain seemed dancing from his head. The room itself, all swaying and quivering with the melody, grew dim and stole from view. The music softly ...
— The Last American - A Fragment from The Journal of KHAN-LI, Prince of - Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy • J. A. Mitchell

... Mrs. Ritson. It was strange that Paul's mother had sent for her. They were friends, but there had never been much intimacy between them. Mrs. Ritson was a grave and earnest woman, a saintly soul, and Greta's lightsome spirit had always felt rebuked in her presence. Paul loved his mother, and she herself must needs love as well as reverence the mother of Paul. It was Paul first and Paul last. Paul was the center of her world. She was a woman, and ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... of a dozen generations of the sons of men, but nothing to surpass this scene in living interest. They come back to me now—the line of blue-and-white troopers, still with levelled carbines; the stolid Welshman, as indifferent as Snowdon; the dapper nobleman, still polished and lightsome, no longer play-acting but rather vaguely anxious; the high-minded troubled Jacobite, fear for his wife and babe gnawing at his heart; the spy, Weir or Turnditch, with the noose he had made for another drawn round his own neck; Master John Freake, the quiet, Quakerlike merchant, whose power was rooted ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... him to ebb and helping him to rise." With his reader Drant is equally high-handed. "I dare not warrant the reader to understand him in all places," he writes, "no more than he did me. Howbeit I have made him more lightsome well nigh by one half (a small accomplishment for one of my continuance) and if thou canst not now in all points perceive him (thou must bear with me) in sooth the default is thine own." After this one is somewhat prepared for ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos

... breathe a delicious thrill in an atmosphere of peril, to feel a leap of the blood, a gladness, but it was at a time of intense excitement, a sort of epic joy; but how could a man, lying in the dark, waiting for he knew not what—how could he put down a weighty care and take up a lightsome tune? ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read

... not to sit in judgment upon what the catechism would call her "betters;" and yet her own strong instinct of almost indefinite endurance turned with something approaching contempt from this weak, lightsome nature, broken by the first touch ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... Helen sighed. "How long the hours!" my tortured heart replied. Joy, like a child, with lightsome steps doth glide By Father Time, and, looking in his face, Cries, snatching blossoms from the fair road-side, "I could pluck more, but for thy hurried pace." The while her elder brother Pain, man grown, Whose feet are hurt by many a thorn and stone, Looks to some distant hill-top, high and calm, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... her to his bosom in transports — "Wondrous woman! what do I not owe to God, ever blessed, for such a comforter! I came just now from Rochelle with the load of a mountain on my heart. You have taken off that mountain, and substituted a joy most lightsome and heavenly. Like a ministering angel, you have confirmed me in duty; you have ended my struggles — and by so cheerfully offering to forsake all and follow me, you have displayed a love, dear Louisa, which will, I trust, render ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... as borne of salvage brood, And having beene with acorns alwaies fed, 590 Can no whit savour this celestiall food, But with base thoughts are into blindnesse led, And kept from looking on the lightsome day: For whome I waile and ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser

... the laughter everywhere, From the lips that seemed too lightsome For the sigh of any care. And the dance went "Merry! Merry!" Whilst the feet that tripped along, Bore the hearts that were as happy As a wild ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)

... walked down to call on the bride, and came home full of admiration at the place being so lightsome and cheerful. Which of you two ladies ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... pleasant and how sad the turning tide Of human life, when side by side The child and youth begin to glide Along the vale of years: The pure twin-being for a little space, With lightsome heart, and yet a graver face, Too young for woe, but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... Texel was that though her corporeal part might be a direct inheritance from her Burgomeister father and his substantial brewery, her spirit had been designed for an artful fairy of half her size, in order that it might go pirouetting into airy realms of the imagination. For she was gay enough and lightsome enough in her demeanor. She came in with a skip which would have been entrancing in some elfish mignonne who could dance light-foot on spring flowers without crushing them. But when this our solid Burgomagisterial Katrin tripped in, it nearly ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... fancying that Julian Bayne's presence was much desired at some house-party or romantic elopement, or other lightsome ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock

... had faded out, and the little figure, too, had vanished, leaving that one breast desolate, save when a lightsome shadow flitted across its ever-verdant memory. The summer cottage looked dreary, with its closed blinds, and the autumn leaves rustling about it in the bleak winds; but the little tombstone still gleamed in the sunlight, that cast a pleasant and warm halo upon it, and the birds and ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... days when we two dreamed together? Days marvellously fair, As lightsome as a skyward floating feather Sailing on summer air— Summer, summer, that came drifting through Fate's hand to ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson

... to the neighbouring trees, thus he To th'Fountaines talk'd, and streames ran by, And after, seekes the great Creator out By these faire traces of his foot. But if a lightsome Country house that's free From care, such as Luciscu's bee, Or Nemicini's, if Besdan's fruitfull field Can Grace to his rude table yeild, To his plaine board with country dainties set, In ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski

... set about the cure of my mother. And she went tripping about the house—and tripping she went, believe me, stout as she was, as lightsome as one of Skipper Tommy's fairies—with a manner so large and confident, a glance so compelling, that 'twas beyond us to doubt her power or slight her commands. First of all she told my mother, repeating it with patience and persuasive insistence, that she would be well in ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan

... Valla against Bartolus; but an evangelical testimony I hope will content you. Matth. 17 it is said that, at the transfiguration of our Lord, Vestimenta ejus facta sunt alba sicut lux, his apparel was made white like the light. By which lightsome whiteness he gave his three apostles to understand the idea and figure of the eternal joys; for by the light are all men comforted, according to the word of the old woman, who, although she had never a tooth in her head, was wont to say, Bona lux. And Tobit, chap.5, after ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... since it could not be matured on earth; for women worship such gentle dignity as his; and the proud, contemplative, yet kindly soul is oftenest captivated by simplicity like hers. But while they spoke softly, and he was watching the happy sadness, the lightsome shadows, the shy yearnings of a maiden's nature, the wind through the Notch took a deeper and drearier sound. It seemed, as the fanciful stranger said, like the choral strain of the spirits of the blast, who in old Indian times had their dwelling among these mountains, and made their heights and ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... they went down the hill. Lou and Mrs. Mayfield "bursting into song," Jim and Tom laughing. The dawn had been red and the early morning was still pink, with here and there a mist-veil floating up from the creek. In the air were sudden joys, the indescribable and indefinable glees of a lightsome day, the very childhood of time; and back to the north the migratory bird was singing his way, mimicked and laughed at by the native mocking songster, jongleur of the feathered world. In all this blythe land it did not seem that there was an ache or a pain, of the body or of the heart; the ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read

... Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose, Frae aff its thorny tree; And my fause luver staw the rose, But left the ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... vines (I assure you), pears, strawberries, parsnips, leeks, carrots, cabbages, to delight the heart of old Alcinous. You enter without passage into a cheerful dining room, all studded over and rough with old Books, and above is a lightsome Drawing room, 3 windows, full of choice prints. I feel like a great Lord, never having had a ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... a lightsome Rondeau with a dramatic Introduction, is, like the Bolero, not without its beauties; but in spite of greater individuality, ranks, like it, low among the master's works, being patchy, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... the rush of a "passenger," a two-engine haul from a single, and even the heavy voice of the big old "shunter" that lived about the Noonoon station had grown familiar; but the haughtiest of all was a travelling engine attended only by its tender, and speeding by with lightsome action, like a governor thankfully free from officialdom and ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... seem something like a discussion of infinitesimals, but I think M. Halevy's co-operation has given M. Meilhac's plays a fuller ethical richness. To the younger writer is due a simple but direct irony, as well as a lightsome and laughing desire to point a moral when occasion serves. Certainly, I shall not hold up a play written to please the public of the Palais Royal, or even of the Gymnase, as a model of all the virtues. Nor need it be, on the other hand, an embodiment of all ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... June, and our Canadian woods were in their first flush o' green—an' how green an' lightsome they be in their spring dress—when Jeanie Burns landed in Canada. She travelled her lane up the country, wondering why Willie was not at Montreal to meet her as he had promised in the last letter he sent her. It was ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... a narrow room, very bright and lightsome, with its white counterpane, white bed curtains, and white veil over the looking-glass to keep ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... Father, when Young John had closed the door, 'let us say no more about it.' The last few minutes had improved his spirits remarkably, and he was quite lightsome. 'Where is my old pensioner all this while? We must not leave him by himself any longer, or he will begin to suppose he is not welcome, and that would pain me. Will you fetch him, my child, or ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... person, Jacqueline herself, was also pondering rather soberly this morning. And her thoughts fitted as oddly with her piquant, lightsome, cynical youth as the gloomily patriotic ones of the Storm Centre did with his youth, which was robust and boyish and swashbuckling. To judge from the way their brains worked now, both young people might have been grave wielders of state affairs, instead ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... bless'd, a lightsome hour was that, And joyful were we to see The sunny face of ilk bonnie brat, So full ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... Christian glad and lightsome, and said, with a merry heart, "He hath given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death." Then he stood still awhile to look and wonder; for it was very surprising to him, that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden. He looked therefore, and looked again, ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan

... song-birds' concert strife She heard the blithesome call of quail, The scornful cry of blue-jay dressed In splendid robes, with lordly crest. 'Twas joy to see, 'twas joy to hear, 'Twas joy to wander without fear. O lightsome heart! O peaceful breast! Where yet no passion brought unrest! Gayly she tripped, unconscious all That any danger might befall. But suddenly the song-birds fled From all the branches overhead. Then on her ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... he left Grace Bernard's with a proud step and lightsome heart, that he had been blue over the society question for nothing, for, in fact, had he at this time possessed no friend save the single one whose arm now rested upon his own, he would have been fully satisfied. Perchance, in his boyish imaginings, ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey

... and elsewhere follow suit. There is no such timber to repair the waste of the human frame. It is a fuel easily combustible in the visceral grate of the stomach. The mutton-eater is eupeptic. His dreams are airy and lightsome. Somnus descends smiling to his nocturnal pillow, and not clad in the portentous panoply of indigestion, which rivals a guilty conscience in its night visions. The mutton department of Quincy Market is all that it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... capable of being raised by piety or by passion, into their region. And no man touches these divine natures, without becoming, in some degree, himself divine. Like a new soul, they renew the body. We become physically nimble and lightsome; we tread on air; life is no longer irksome, and we think it will never be so. No man fears age or misfortune or death, in their serene company, for he is transported out of the district of change. Whilst we behold unveiled the nature of Justice and Truth, we learn the difference between ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... And he winds adown the mountain high, For many a sore and weary hour. Through dreary beds of tangled fern, Through groves of nightshade dark and dern, Over the grass and through the brake, Where toils the ant and sleeps the snake; Now o'er the violet's azure flush He skips along in lightsome mood; And now he thrids the bramble bush, Till its points are dyed in fairy blood. He has leapt the bog, he has pierced the briar, He has swum the brook, and waded the mire, Till his spirits sank, and his limbs grew weak, And the red waxed fainter in his cheek. He had fallen to the ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake

... a page-boy handsome, With lightsome heart and curly hair, The silken train he carried Of the queen so young ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... same fire to boil their pottage, Two poor old Dames, as I have known, Will often live in one small cottage; But she, poor woman! housed alone. 'Twas well enough when summer came, The long, warm, lightsome summer day, Then at her door the canty dame Would sit, as any ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... scented streets, the sedatives of shopping, the joy of lightsome fritters, these things, combined with the job, the unearned cheque and the fear of losing ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... brought to mind her walk of last Sunday afternoon—and evening;—the hymn, and those other lines Mr. Linden had repeated and which had run in her head fifty times since. And Faith's step grew rather slower and less lightsome as she neared home, and when she got home she went straight up to her room without turning to the right or the left. Her mother was just then in the kitchen and heard her not, and shielded by her bonnet Faith saw not even that Mr. Linden's door stood open; but when she came out again a while ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... the operation of his hands, thou attemptest to murder souls. What! canst thou give no better counsel touching those whom God hath wounded, than to send them to the ordinances of hell for help? Thou biddest them be merry and lightsome; but dost thou not know that "the heart of fools is in the house of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... that unrestrained imaging may produce a rudderless steamer, while the trained faculty is the graceful sloop, skimming the seas at her skipper's will, her course steadied by the helm of reason and her lightsome wings ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... was Christian glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, 'He hath given me rest by His sorrow, and life by ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge

... and continual cheerfulness had always been the joy of Dyck's life, and because his mother had married his father—she was a woman of sense, with all her lightsome ways—he tried to regard his father with profound respect. Since his wife's death, however, Miles Calhoun had ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... pleasurable—pshaw! Albert's illness was a trifle, and we soon resigned ourselves to the miseries of the prisoners on the hill—we ate our last morsel of the Jewish pasch-bread of flour and juice of orange, cracked our last bottle of champagne, and took our leave of the Dark Continent with lightsome heart. The impression this little by-journey left upon me was so agreeable that I could not avoid the enticement to communicate it to the reader. If I have wandered from romantic Spain, it was only to take him to ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... there. Oh, things are getting pretty bright when trusts and corporations begin to bid for your influence. But what are you going to do with that fellow Sawyer?" he asked, becoming grave, or rather, more serious, for gravity could hardly spread over his lightsome face. ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read

... my God.' She spoke at intervals. More cheerful; anxious that I should not go without prayer. Has much knowledge; complete command of the Bible. 19th—Spoke on 'Convincing of sin and righteousness.' Rather more heart to hear. 20th—Psalm 51. Her look and her words were lightsome. 23d—Faintish and restless; no sign of peace. 'I am the way,' and Psalm 25. 24th—Still silent and little sign of anything. 26th—Psalm 40, 'The fearful pit.' Very plain. Could not get anything out of her. February 1—Died ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar

... lieth heavily Over the ladye's grave; I wist of three That bore it, of a blessed verity! But he hath lifted it in his pure madness, As it were lightsome as a summer gladness, And from the carved niche hath ta'en the lamp, And hung it by ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart

... fireplace a log fire was spurting and crackling, throwing out a ruddy glare which, with the four bracket-lamps which stood at each corner of the room, gave a bright and lightsome air to the whole apartment. Above was a wreath-work of blazonry, extending up to the carved and corniced oaken roof; while on either side stood the high canopied chairs placed for the master of the house ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the end of time it will be remembered, that he devoted himself, a willing victim, to the glory of Greece. Such was his choice: he expected to die. He foresaw that he should leave this cheerful earth, the lightsome sky, and thy love, Perdita; yet he neither hesitated or turned back, going right onward to his mark of fame. While the earth lasts, his actions will be recorded with praise. Grecian maidens will in devotion strew flowers on his tomb, and make the air around it resonant ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... destroy himself—whosoever should hap to come to the knowledge of it and intended to do his best to hinder it, he must first find the means to search and find out the manner and countenance of the man. He must see whether he be lightsome, glad, and joyful or dumpish, heavy, and sad, and whether he go about it as one that were full of the glad hope of heaven, or as one who had his breast stuffed full of tediousness and weariness of the world. If ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... the due proportion of them, are either quite or nearly extinct. Thus in Wiclif's Bible alone you might note the following, 'lovesum', 'hatesum', 'lustsum', 'gilsum' (guilesome), 'wealsum', 'heavysum', 'lightsum', 'delightsum'; of these 'lightsome' long survived, and indeed still survives in provincial dialects; but of the others all save 'delightsome' are gone; and that, although used in our Authorized Version (Mal. iii, 12), is now only employed ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... the ring, communicating the name of her sweetheart, when those in the ring resume their lightsome ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford

... Lightsome, loud, or slow; Telling by their echo How the humours go. Lagging when they're lazy. Running when they're wild. Leaping when they're gladsome, Walking when they're mild. Footsteps, voices, faces, Where are ye to-night? Father, keep my ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon

... which Aunt Mary's nephew went was something lurid and awful. It lasted until Monday, and then its owner returned to college, as ill of body and as embittered of spirit as it was in him to be. The lightsome devil who had ruled him up to his meeting with Mrs. Rosscott resumed its sway with terrible force. The authorities showed a tendency to patience because young Denham had appeared to reform lately and had been working hard; but young Denham felt no thankful sentiments for their leniency, and proved ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner

... distance, on the neighb'ring plain, With creaking wheels slow comes the heavy wain: High on its tow'ring load a maid appears, And Nelly's voice sounds shrill in Robin's ears. Quick from his hand he throws the cumb'rous flail, And leaps with lightsome limbs th' enclosing pale. O'er field and fence he scours, and furrow wide, With waken'd Comrade barking by his side; Whilst tracks of trodden grain, and sidelong hay, And broken hedge-flow'rs sweet, mark ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie

... The king could do no wrong. Of course he himself was doing wrong in not putting the baskets back where they belonged; but then he reflected, he took that sin on his own humble conscience, and in some measure took it off the conscience of the Judge's son—if, indeed, it troubled that lightsome conscience at all. And, of course, too, he knew that, being an apprentice, he would be whipped for it when the substitution was discovered. But he didn't mind being whipped for the boy he worshipped. ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... on its ample stores of garnered fruit, As full of sunshine to our aged eyes As when it nursed the blossoms of our spring. Such is true Love, which steals into the heart With feet as silent as the lightsome dawn That kisses smooth the rough brows of the dark, And hath its will through blissful gentleness, Not like a rocket, which, with passionate glare, Whirs suddenly up, then bursts, and leaves the night Painfully quivering on the dazed eyes; A love that gives and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... throwing in a pebble and noting the length of time between its sinking and the bubble's rising, the stream was almost, if not quite, six feet deep. To wade across, then go in battle with his garments all soaked and heavy with water—a serious hinderance, as this must be, to the free and lightsome play of his limbs—were but to give the nimble foe yet another advantage over him, desperate being the odds already. To be sure, not more than a hundred yards below the river was so shallow as to ripple over the rocks, where he might easily make the fording all but dry-shod. ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... wistfully, Amid o'erhanging banks and shelvy rocks, Far from the bustle and the din of men, His sinless pastime. Silver were his locks, His figure lank; his dark eye, like a hawk's, Glisten'd beneath his hat of whitest straw, Lightsome of wear, with flies and gut begirt: The osier creel, athwart his shoulders slung, Became full well his coat of velveteen, Square-tail'd, four-pocket'd, and worn for years, As told by weather stains. His quarter-boots, Lash'd with stout leather thongs, and ankles bare, Spoke the adept—and of full ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... world was now beginning to look upon Ethel Barrymore as one of the really charming fixtures of the stage. What impressed every one, most of all Charles Frohman, was the extraordinary ease with which she fairly leaped from lightsome comedy to deep and haunting pathos. Her work in "The Silver Box," by John Galsworthy, was a conspicuous example of this talent. Frohman gave the manuscript of the play to Miss Barrymore to read and she was ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... act opens with a duet ("Schelm! halt fest") in which Agatha's fear and anxiety are charmingly contrasted with the lightsome and cheery nature of Annchen, her attendant, and this in turn is followed by a naive and coquettish arietta ("Kommt ein schlanker Bursch gegangen") sung by the latter. Annchen departs, and Agatha, opening her window and letting ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton

... very competent authority on such matters, "is one of the most spacious, lightsome, and well-proportioned perpendicular churches, cruciform, with a handsome stone spire. The roof, stalls, and other wood- work very perfect. The windows, some ironwork, and ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... compensated on the other hand by the elusiveness of its lightsome spirit, its grace so easily lost," said a poet who wrote songs for the pleasure of the Court. "The charm of poetry," he said sadly, "is too ethereal to live in sordid company, and perishes oft in the handling that had only proved the ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer

... old Jonesy lights on you," warned her new friend. "You won't find life so lightsome when ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther

... Troubles are still flying about the world, and have increased in numbers, rather than lessened, and are a very ugly set of imps, and carry most venomous stings in their tails. I have felt them already, and expect to feel them more as I grow older. But then that lovely and lightsome little figure of Hope! What in the world could we do without her? Hope spiritualizes the earth; Hope makes it always new; and, even in the earth's best and brightest aspect, Hope shows it to be only the shadow of an ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... suddenly hushed, and at once the strain abandoned the woods-note and took another motif. At first it played softly in the higher notes, a tinkling, lightsome little melody that stirred a kindly surface-smile over a full heart. Then suddenly, without transition, it dropped to the lower register, and began to sob and wail in the full vibrating power ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... fair picture of Clifford's state of mind were we to represent him as continually or prevailingly wretched. On the contrary, there was no other man in the city, we are bold to affirm, of so much as half his years, who enjoyed so many lightsome and griefless moments as himself. He had no burden of care upon him; there were none of those questions and contingencies with the future to be settled which wear away all other lives, and render them not worth having by the very process of providing ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... spell from kind Nature thou bearest, Some magic of tone or enchantment of eye, That hearts that are hardest, from forms that are fairest, Receive such impressions as never can die! The foot of the fairy, though lightsome and airy,[13] Can stamp on the hard rock the shapes it doth wear; Art cannot trace it, nor ages efface it: And such are thy ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... and washed with various scented waters. After he had passed through several degrees of heat, he came out quite a different man from what he was before. His skin was clear as that of a child, his body lightsome and free; and when he returned into the hall, he found, instead of his own poor raiment, a robe, the magnificence of which astonished him. The genie helped him to dress, and when he had done, transported him back ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... bright It seemed the dark castle had gathered all Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall In his siege of three hundred summers long, And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf, Had cast them forth; so, young and strong And lightsome as a locust leaf, Sir Launfal flashed forth in his maiden mail To seek in all climes ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... often stood rapt in admiration at the beauty of the dining-room. The eye is first attracted to the ceiling, painted in fresco in the Italian manner, where lightsome arabesques are frolicking. Female forms, in stucco ending in foliage, support at regular distances corbeils of fruit, from which spring the garlands of the ceiling. Charming paintings, the work of unknown artists, fill the panels between the female figures, representing the luxuries of the table,—boar's-heads, ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... Lightsome, brightsome, cousin mine, Easy, breezy Caroline! With thy locks all raven-shaded, From thy merry brow up-braided, And thine eyes of laughter full, Brightsome cousin mine! Thou in chains of love hast bound me— Wherefore dost thou ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun

... pathless forest will be more lightsome than the open ice? No; we'd better kindle a fire, and camp out to-night. I'm pretty sure we must have passed Cedar ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... Saturday, baking; and Sunday, the hardest day of all. For, withal, the Puritan sense of observance, that had not been utterly swamped by the blue and enticing skies of California, Sunday was a feast day, not in a lightsome sense, but in a dull, heavy, gastronomic way, unleavened by either wine or passable wit. On Sunday the men of the family returned home from church and gorged. If the day were fine, perhaps everybody save mother took a cable-car ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... but moderately the comfort that presides within, inasmuch as will be found congregated all the agremens pertaining to more consequential habitations. Considerable tact is conspicuous everywhere; but none more unequivocally displayed than in the lightsome little Dining Room, contrasted with the gloomy, yet superior grace of the Library, into which it opens. This room is fitted up in the Gothic style, the Windows are of ancient painted glass "shedding their dim ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin

... was lacking something that every one else possessed; that the little children who played with her knew what she could never know; that she was infirm, afflicted, cut off; that there was a strange and lovely and lightsome world lying round about her, where every one else might sport and find delight, but that her spirit could not enter it, because she was shut off from it by the great ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... brown cricket had ceased to chirp; the katydid no longer quarrelled in shrill tones with her neighbor; the wail of the sad whippoorwill was hushed; the rugged sides of old Crow Nest were rounded and softened in the silvery moonbeams, adown which the little brooklet sprang this night with a more lightsome ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow

... With these and similar lightsome turns of speech was Joseph in the habit of keeping his men up to the mark. The method was eminently successful. His coloured compeers crowded round him "all of a grin," as he himself described it, and eager to do his slightest behest. From the throne to the back-kitchen ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... pleasantly in his own workshop or on the cool new walls of church or convent, with his trained school of younger artists round to aid him, were as different as possible from the elaborate calculations and measurements by which alone the lofty tower, straight, and lightsome as a lily, could have sprung so high and stood so ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various

... desert of those ocean solitudes, But vocal to the sea-bird's harrowing shriek, The bellowing monster, and the rushing storm, Now to the sweet and many-mingling sounds 395 Of kindliest human impulses respond: Those lonely realms bright garden-isles begem, With lightsome clouds and shining seas between, And fertile valleys resonant with bliss, Whilst green woods overcanopy the wave, 400 Which like a toil-worn labourer leaps to shore, To meet the kisses ...
— The Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... void the man I surely deem Whom thy fair soul enamoureth not apace, When softly self-revealed in outer space 5 By actions sweet with which thy will doth teem, And gifts—Love's bow and shafts in their esteem Who tend the flowers one day shall crown thy race. When thou dost lightsome talk or gladsome sing,— A power to draw the hill-trees, rooted hard— 10 The doors of eyes and ears let that man keep, Who knows himself unworthy thy regard. Grace from above alone him help can bring, That passion in his heart ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton

... or tracts and sermons, by Sanderson, Heylin, Hammond, Fuller, and Jeremy Taylor, some of them of a highly Episcopal tenor, were among the publications of the Protectorate. Fuller's Church History of Britain, one of the best and most lightsome books in our language, was published in 1655-6. Brian Walton's great Polyglott had not yet been carried farther than the third volume; but the Protector had continued to that scholar the material furtherance in his arduous work which had been yielded ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... Shaws stood some five full storeys high, not counting lofts. Well, as I advanced, it seemed to me the stair grew airier and a thought more lightsome; and I was wondering what might be the cause of this change, when a second blink of the summer lightning came and went. If I did not cry out, it was because fear had me by the throat; and if I did not fall, it was more by Heaven's mercy than my own strength. ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson

... on which she had just entered grown strangely insipid, if it sometimes seemed to her that she had quaffed all the richness and sweetness of life on that wondrous first night till only the dregs remained, she gave no sign. With her sunny smile and lightsome ways she reigned supreme, both in society and in the home, and none but her aunt and Darrell missed the old-time rippling laughter or noted the deepening wistfulness and seriousness of the fair ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour

... 'Twas the natal day Of his nibs the popular John S. Gray, And many observers considered his birth The primary cause of his moral worth. "The ball is free!" cried Black Bart, and they all Said a ball with no chain was a novel ball; "And I never have seed," said Jimmy Hope, "Sech a lightsome dance withouten a rope." Chinamen, Indians, Portuguese, Blacks, Russians, Italians, Kanucks and Kanaks, Chilenos, Peruvians, Mexicans—all Greased with their presence that notable ball. None were excluded ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... Inspiration, splendid, dominant, Egeria with the lightsome eyes profound, Sudden Erato, Genius quick to grant, Old picture Angel of the ...
— Poems of Paul Verlaine • Paul Verlaine

... was lightsome land, Where gowan'd grass was growin', For man and beast were food and rest, And milk and honey flowin'. A father's blessing follow'd close, Where'er her foot was treading, And Jeanie's humble, hamely joys On every side were spreading wide, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... The lightsome lad wi' yellow hair, The elfin lad that is so fair, He comes in rich and braw attire— To loose the ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie

... she had found something at last. Instantly the blood crept warmly over her body. Her nervous tension relaxed. She walked out into the busy street and discovered a new atmosphere. Behold, the throng was moving with a lightsome step. She noticed that men and women were smiling. Scraps of conversation and notes of laughter floated to her. The air was light. People were already pouring out of the buildings, their labour ended for the day. She noticed ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser



Words linked to "Lightsome" :   tripping, cheerful, light-footed



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