So he will, he says, tell the tale of "stalwart folk that lived
erst while," of "King Robert of Scotland that hardy was of heart and hand," and of "Sir James of Douglas that in his time so worthy was," that his fame reached into far lands.
By bears be thou devoured, as
erst Was famous Favila."
*And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnam'd - Inmate of highest stars, where
erst it sham'd All other loveliness : its honied dew(The fabled nectar that the heathen knew) Deliriously sweet, was dropp'd from Heaven, And fell on gardens of the unforgiven In Trebizond - and on a sunny flower So like its own above that, to this hour, It still remaineth, torturing the bee With madness, and unwonted reverie : In Heaven, and all its environs, the leaf And blossom of the fairy plant, in grief Disconsolate linger - grief that hangs her head, Repenting follies that full long have fled, Heaving her white breast to the balmy air, Like guilty beauty, chasten'd, and more fair : Nyctanthes too, as sacred as the light She fears to perfume, perfuming the night :
He quotes with approval those admirable words from Goethe, "In der Beschrankung zeigt sich
erst der Meister"; yet still always finds himself wavering between "frittering myself away on the infinitely little, and longing after what is unknown and distant." There is, doubtless, over and above the physical consumptive tendency, an instinctive turn of sentiment in this touching confession.
I summon all Rather to be in readiness with hand Or counsel to assist, lest I, who
erst Thought none my equal, now be overmatched." So spake the old Serpent, doubting, and from all With clamour was assured their utmost aid At his command; when from amidst them rose Belial, the dissolutest Spirit that fell, The sensualest, and, after Asmodai, The fleshliest Incubus, and thus advised:-- "Set women in his eye and in his walk, Among daughters of men the fairest found.
Entering the old back-parlour, and ascending the flight of stairs, abrupt and steep, and quaintly fashioned as of old, they turned into the best room; the pride of Mrs Varden's heart, and
erst the scene of Miggs's household labours.
So, the haggard head suspended in the air flitted across the road, like the spectre of one of the many heads
erst hoisted upon neighbouring Temple Bar, and stopped before the watchman.
Each must hie to her own home; wend you we might do all these journeys in one so brief life as He hath appointed that created life, and thereto death likewise with help of Adam, who by sin done through persuasion of his helpmeet, she being wrought upon and bewrayed by the beguilements of the great enemy of man, that serpent hight Satan, aforetime consecrated and set apart unto that evil work by over- mastering spite and envy begotten in his heart through fell ambitions that did blight and mildew a nature
erst so white and pure whenso it hove with the shining multitudes its brethren-born in glade and shade of that fair heaven wherein all such as native be to that rich estate and --"
Not in the wine-shop did Madame Defarge confer with these ministers, but in the shed of the wood-sawyer,
erst a mender of roads.
If the feast were less magnificent than those same panelled walls had witnessed in a by-gone century,--if mine host presided with somewhat less of state than might have befitted a successor of the royal Governors,--if the guests made a less imposing show than the bewigged and powdered and embroidered dignitaries, who
erst banqueted at the gubernatorial table, and now sleep, within their armorial tombs on Copp's Hill, or round King's Chapel,--yet never, I may boldly say, did a more comfortable little party assemble in the Province House, from Queen Anne's days to the Revolution.
The longest task, the hardest theme Fell to my share as
erst, And still I toiled to place my name In every study first.
This evening he will be casually looking into the iron extinguishers at the door of Sir Leicester Dedlock's house in town; and to-morrow morning he will be walking on the leads at Chesney Wold, where
erst the old man walked whose ghost is propitiated with a hundred guineas.