United States or Barbados ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
She looked neither like a sylph, nor an oread, nor a fairy; she had neither l'air distingué nor l'air magnifique, but bore a great resemblance to a real mortal girl, such as you might pass a dozen of without any particular comment one of those appearances, which, though common as water, may, like that, be colored any way by the associations you connect with it.
Without that face pale as the primrose with hyacinthine locks, for ever shunning and for ever haunting me, mocking my waking thoughts as in a dream; without that smile which my heart could never turn to scorn; without those eyes dark with their own lustre, still bent on mine, and drawing the soul into their liquid mazes like a sea of love; without that name trembling in fancy's ear; without that form gliding before me like Oread or Dryad in fabled groves, what should I do? how pass away the listless, leaden-footed hours?
I was not as happy as formerly in the school. The debates, compositions and declamations interested me less, and I should have been quite dull except for some young girls at the Oread Institute. This institution had just been opened on the hill, directly opposite our academy. It was not within speaking distance, but was within writing and signalling distance.
I felt quite sure, though, that the nymph must be an Oread; because he said that she comes to gather colors from the roses, and that every morning and every evening she uses these colors to tint the highest peaks and crests of her mountains making them so beautiful that mortals would always begin and end each day by looking up at them. Of course, the moment I saw, you I knew who you were."
She used to sit at his feet, her arms upon his knees, look up at him and tell him of his dominion over her and all the world; her "fighting-god" he had once been, and then again her Pan, and she a dryad or an oread. Jerry crept nearer, stealthily. He had learned the craft of the woods years ago, and made no sound.
Sweet suns green hills are shining o'er; Soft brooklets burst their icy chain: Upon the blue translucent river Laughs down an all-unclouded day, The winged west winds gently quiver, The buds are bursting from the spray; While birds are blithe on every tree; The Oread from the mountain-shore Sighs, "Lo! thy flowers come back to thee Thy child, sad mother, comes no more!"
Not for a moment could it be fancied the oread step which belonged to that daughter of the hills my wife, my Agnes; no, it was the dull massy tread of a man: and immediately there came a loud blow upon the door, and in the next moment, the bell having been found, a furious peal of ringing. Oh coward heart! not for a lease of immortality could I have gone forwards myself.
As I have roll'd rapidly hither for more than a thousand miles, through fair Ohio, through bread-raising Indiana and Illinois through ample Missouri, that contains and raises everything; as I have partially explor'd your charming city during the last two days, and, standing on Oread hill, by the university, have launch'd my view across broad expanses of living green, in every direction I have again been most impress'd, I say, and shall remain for the rest of my life most impress'd, with that feature of the topography of your western central world that vast Something, stretching out on its own unbounded scale, unconfined, which there is in these prairies, combining the real and ideal, and beautiful as dreams.
The Oread said nothing at all. But she too looked annoyed, and Jurgen reflected that it was probably not the custom of oreads to be rescued from the eudaemonism of satyrs. So Jurgen left them; and yet deeper in the forest he found a bald-headed squat old man, with a big paunch and a flat red nose and very small bleared eyes.
I never ventured to read them to my Oread or fellow students. Thus I cherished two secrets and discovered that the private indulgence of verse-making is almost as sweet as a hidden love. The terms of the Academy and the Oread Institute ended on the same day, and I parted from my sweetheart never to meet again. What to do with myself during the long summer vacation was the next question.
Word Of The Day