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Wakeful   Listen
adjective
Wakeful  adj.  Not sleeping; indisposed to sleep; watchful; vigilant. "Dissembling sleep, but wakeful with the fright."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wakeful" Quotes from Famous Books



... be at peace again!" I thought; and I lay wakeful, still thinking of the garden, the growing fruit, the humming-birds that whirred about like great insects among the flowers, and emitted a bright flash every now and then as the sun glanced from their ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn

... sleep—they could not. There is that in their minds that would keep them wakeful if they had not slept for a week. Time passing does not lessen their suspense. On the contrary, it grows keener, becoming an ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... such an interruption. The reader will readily forgive this trait of harshness and precipitancy, on my part, when he is informed that I was then just enjoying the "honey dew" of sleep, after many wakeful and restless hours. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... lost pages had contained, and why they had been cut out. The matter might be a mere triviality which he could explain in a moment. But on softly opening his bedroom door I found him sleeping, and Parnham (whom the strong light always burnt in the room rendered more wakeful) informed me that his master had been in a deep sleep for more than an hour. I knew how sorely his wasted energies needed such repose, and stepped back to the library without awaking him. A few minutes before, I had been feeling sleepy at the conclusion of my task, but now all wish ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner

... that, it might be worth it. But there's a new white waistcoat. An audience soon gets tired of a lecture, and then there's nothing for the wakeful ones to concentrate on but the white waistcoat of the lecturer. It must be of a virgin whiteness. Say thirty-five shillings. So I lose thirty shillings by it. ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne

... are they enabled to sustain such constant watchfulness, singing and providing subsistence for their offspring during the day, and still continuing wakeful and musical while it is night? Why do they take pleasure in singing, when no one will come in answer to their call? Have they their worship, like religious beings, and are their midnight lays but the outpouring of the fervency of their spirits? Do they rejoice, like ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... Nigh rising Atlas, next the falling sun Long tracts of Ethiopian climates run: There a Massylian priestess I have found, Honored for age, for magic arts renowned: The Hesperian temple was her trusted care; 'Twas she supplied the wakeful dragon's fare; She, poppy-seeds in honey taught to steep, Reclaimed his rage, and soothed him into sleep; She watched the golden fruit. Her charms unbind The chains of love, or fix them on the mind; ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... for a little while stood looking at her; no ghost nor somnambulist was she in appearance, with those bright wakeful eyes, the curious smile that played about her lips, and the rich colour, perhaps from confusion or shame at being detected, surging back into her lately pale face. She did not refuse the girl's appeal, or try any longer to conceal her feelings. Setting the lamp down she came ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... For the night brings me no respite from my woes, but rather increases them. When the day's duties are over, and all the house is still, I lie tossing ceaselessly, torn by conflicting doubts and fears. E'en as the wakeful bird sits darkling all night long, and pours her endless plaint, now low and mellow, now piercing high and shrill, so wavers my spirit in its purpose, and threads the unending maze of thought. Sweet home of my wedded joy, must I leave thee, and all the ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell

... that God intended it not to be at my time—that was very clear; and after considerable reflection and a wakeful night, I came to the conclusion that my divine Impulse did not lead me to adopt a course of action, but only to avoid a course—the fact which I developed in my letter to you. And then came the resolve, ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson

... after last night. She had taken counsel with her own heart, through many wakeful hours, and grown calm and still. Neither her husband nor Miss Gascoigne had once named Sir Edwin. Probably Aunt Henrietta did not know him, and in the crowded party Dr. Grey might not have chanced to recognize him. Indeed, most likely the young man would take every means of avoiding recognition ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... and fears must fall to the ground. I determined to state to Lord Glenfallen freely and accurately the substance of the communication which I had just heard, and in his words and looks to seek for its proof or refutation; full of these thoughts I remained wakeful and excited all night, every moment fancying that I heard the step, or saw the figure of my recent visitor towards whom I felt a species of horror and dread which I can hardly describe. There was something in her face, though her features had evidently been handsome, and were not, ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... world for love, indeed! Can any man's love be worth it? And I am going on to become such a singer as the world does not possess another like me. I know it. I feel it daily in the increasing sweetness of the music made. I see it in the wakeful eagerness of men's ears, waiting for some charm of sound,—some wonderful charm,—which they hardly dare to expect, but which always comes at last. I see it in the eyes of the women, who are hardly satisfied that ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope

... sleepily. "I'll not go near him. It's me for sleep. You can go and see if any of the other fellows want a job. They're all down at a ball at the station. Get one of those wakeful spirits ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung

... Britton, with a perfectly straight face. He must have been sorely tried in the face of my inane maunderings. "Pardon me, sir, but wouldn't it be a tip-top idea to have it out with the Schmicks to-night? Being, sir, as you anticipate a rather wakeful night, I only make so bold as to suggest it in the hopes you may 'ave some light on the subject before you close your eyes. In other words, sir, so as you won't be altogether in the dark when morning comes. See ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... Pass on, ye sons of Eve! veil not your looks, Lest they descry the evil of your path! I noted not (so busied was my thought) How much we now had circled of the mount, And of his course yet more the sun had spent, When he, who with still wakeful caution went, Admonish'd: "Raise thou up thy head: for know Time is not now for slow suspense. Behold That way an angel hasting towards us! Lo Where duly the sixth handmaid doth return From service on the day. Wear thou ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... controversy forewent compliments[FN364] and the tent-pitchers, who were sent on to the next station to set up the pavilion of the bride and the other tents. Ja'afar took patience until every eye however wakeful waxed sleep-full, at which time he rose up and went in to Attaf's wife who, the moment she saw him enter, covered her face with her hands as from a stranger. "The Peace be upon thee!" said he and said she, "With thee also be The Peace and the ruth of Allah ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... Adams restless, wakeful, anxious to talk. The opiates had left him. She saw that he was fully himself, even though conscious of his tortured body. "Laura," he cried in a sick man's feeble voice, "I want to tell ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... castle[39] is lowered during the night, December 17, 1648, and the tramp of a troop of horse is heard by the wakeful prisoner. He calls for his attendant Herbert, who is sent to ascertain the cause of this midnight commotion. Major Harrison is arrived. The King is agitated. He has been warned that Harrison is a man chosen to assassinate him. He is reassured in the morning, in being informed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... after outlying settlements. The borderers themselves, on the other hand, thought that the general government was in league with the savages, and broke through treaties, and destroyed so far as they could the national policy. St. Clair was hissed and jeered as he traveled home, but a wakeful opposition turned from the unsuccessful general to a vain attempt to prove that ambushed savages and sleeping sentries were due to a weak war department and a corrupt and inefficient treasury. The mass of moderate people, no doubt, desired tranquillity ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... just in his most indignant moments, when he felt disposed to give a sudden lurch sidewise to knock the gardener over like a skittle, and paused, hesitating, he had an admonition, which showed him how weak human nature is at such times, in the shape of a sudden seizure. One moment he was wakeful and thinking, the next he was fast asleep, dreaming of being back at Gray's Inn— soundly asleep, ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn

... hour—which never came to her—when he could endure proximity without oneness no longer, and would suddenly announce his departure. And after a day or two of his absence, the mother would be doubly wretched to find a sort of relief in it, and would spend wakeful nights trying to oust it as the merest fancy, persuading herself that she was miserable, and nothing but miserable, in the loss ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... difficulties he likewise surmounted by his ever wakeful diligence, and a more confident hope of future success opening itself to his mind, he rose with higher spirits to accomplish his ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... Above me once, but O to stain forbear The heart which still immaculate I keep! But thou com'st not, and now, with rosy hair From Ganges hastening, to all things again Their native hue restores Day's harbinger. Perhaps thou'st come, and ah, my cruel pain And wakeful thoughts thee ingress have denied Into my eyes, or hurl'd thee out amain. Since, blundering archer, thou dost shoot aside, Or snapp'st thy every dart my breast upon, To me thy wand be never more ...
— Targum • George Borrow

... men were sleeping as men do after two long wakeful nights and a day of stress and exertion. Even grief could not keep away the feeling of exhaustion, and Purvis could hear their deep breathing in the corridor, when, having tethered his horse to a distant paraiso tree, he stole softly up ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan

... grief, dear? Lock it in thy heart! Keep it, close it, Sacred and apart; Lest another, at thy sigh, Hear his sorrow stir and cry. Wakeful watch doth sorrow keep: Hush it! hide it! bid ...
— The Silver Crown - Another Book of Fables • Laura E. Richards

... their regulated seats they took: The strutting prior gazed with pompous mien, And wakeful tongue, prepared with prompt rebuke, If monk asleep in sheltering hood was seen; He wary often peeped beneath that ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... hour or two later, as she lay wakeful in her room above the study, she still heard the sound of ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... that such a state of things can be desirable, or beneficial to any of the parties concerned. I might occupy a hundred pages on the subject, and yet fail to give an adequate idea of the sore, angry, ever wakeful pride that seemed to torment these poor wretches. In many of them it was so excessive, that all feeling of displeasure, or even of ridicule, was lost in pity. One of these was a pretty girl, whose natural disposition must have been gentle and kind; but her good feelings were soured, ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope

... been in bed all night; nor am I in the least drowsy. Expectation, and hope, and doubt, (an uneasy state!) kept me sufficiently wakeful. I stept down at my usual time, that it might not be known I had not been in bed; and gave directions in ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... me greatly by doing so, Dorothea," said Mr. Casaubon, with a shade more meekness than usual in his polite manner. "I am wakeful: my mind is ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... resting place For him who claimed a throne: His canopy, devoid of grace, The rude, rough beams alone; The heather couch his only bed,— Yet well I ween had slumber fled From couch of eider down! Through darksome night till dawn of day, Absorbed in wakeful thought he lay Of Scotland and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... un-crystallise. Sleepy ones went below and melted away somehow. Sleepless ones went to their great panacea, smoke. Lights were put out everywhere save where the duties of the ship required them to burn continually. At last the latest of the sleepless turned in, and none were wakeful through the iron palace except the poor youth who mentally measured the distance from home, and the officers and men on duty. Among the latter was Edgar Berrington, who, standing at his accustomed post down in his own iron depths, pondered the events of the evening ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne

... whom these wakeful eyes May weep, but never see, A night of memories and sighs I consecrate ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various

... could not repress the gleam of joy that flashed into his eyes. The memory of the men killed under his command and the present sufferings of the wounded had preyed upon him through a long, wakeful night. ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock

... two others of the committee of ladies. Every one was very kind. Indeed, I wish you could travel with papa, to see the affection and feeling shown toward him everywhere. We spent that night in the sleeping-car, very handsome and comfortable, but the novelty, I suppose, made us wakeful. At Raleigh and another place the people crowded to the depot and called 'Lee! Lee!' and cheered vociferously, but we were locked up and 'mum.' Everywhere along the road where meals were provided the landlords invited us in, and when we ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... years the twitter of the birds glittering in the morning sun was the first sound that met my ear during the wakeful hours which frequently accompany illness after the worst crisis has passed, and you are recovering by degrees. The gutters ran beneath my bedroom windows, and I could see the steel-blue backs of the swallows as they ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous

... an almost physical pang. "I must go and get her right off," he said; "this thing is serious!" And yet, after a wakeful night, he decided, with the extraordinary respect for her individuality so characteristic of the man—a respect that may be called foolish or divine, as you happen to look at it—he decided not to go. If he dragged her away from the Shakers against her will, what would be gained? "I must give her ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland

... be filled with silent, wakeful coolies, armed with rifles. The grim and watchful silence of the procession, the black mystery of the night with the sinking, cold moon aloft, and the uncertainty of the whole affair, set Peter's nerves to tingling; and his heart ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... tune, with limbs Clownishly swaying, and with clownish foot To beat our mother earth—from whence arose Laughter and peals of jollity, for, lo, Such frolic acts were in their glory then, Being more new and strange. And wakeful men Found solaces for their unsleeping hours In drawing forth variety of notes, In modulating melodies, in running With puckered lips along the tuned reeds, Whence, even in our day do the watchmen guard These old ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... I was still somewhat drowsy, but gathered that my companions had left me, to dine and attend a public dance-hall with the cubbish art student. They had not seemed to need sleep and were still wakeful, for they sang from time to time, and Cousin Egbert lifted the cabby's hat, which he still wore, bowing to imaginary throngs along the street who were supposed to be applauding him. I at once became conscience-stricken ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... mountain summits that I know are shaken. They bow their bristling crests. They are falling, falling on us, and the earth is riven. I wake in terror, shouting: INSOLITIS TREMUERUNT MOTIBUS ALPES! An earthquake, slight but real, has stirred the ever-wakeful Vesta of the brain to this ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... and paled a little, and said, "Yes, mother," soberly, and gone away up-stairs to his own chamber, where he had some wakeful hours, and when he fell asleep often started awake again, with his heart throbbing in his side with that same joyful pain as when he ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... resting-place For him who claimed a throne; His canopy, devoid of grace,— The rude, rough beams alone; The heather couch his only bed, Yet well I know had slumber fled From couch of eider down; Through darksome night to dawn of day, Immersed in wakeful thought he lay, Of Scotland and ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... first gray of morning fill'd the east, And the fog rose out of the Oxus[173-1] stream. But all the Tartar camp along the stream Was hush'd, and still the men were plunged in sleep; Sohrab alone, he slept not; all night long He had lain wakeful, tossing on his bed; But when the gray dawn stole into his tent, He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword, And took his horseman's cloak, and left his tent, And went abroad into the cold wet fog, Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa's[173-2] ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... the wakeful man was at his sick wife's side, supporting her in bed as she sat up wildly staring, ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung

... clutching it with both arms and legs, and swaying desperately in the dark, he felt a rush of wings across his face, and a great white owl flew out hooting in her panic. The boy almost missed his catch with fear, and the Maharajah, wakeful in his apartments, lost another good hour's sleep through hearing the owl's cry. It was the worst of omens, the Maharajah believed, and sometimes he believed it with ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... so unusual, made them wakeful, and though tired, they sat long in the doorway, smoking, thinking. Small talk seemed to them profanation, and of that which was uppermost in each man's mind, none cared first to speak. A subtle understanding, called telepathy, was making of their ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... of the new world where he might, in the reaction from the first excitement, have been feeling lonely. He was too solidly set on getting all that was possible out of his fresh life. But in his most curious searchings into the likely future as he lay that night for an hour or so upon a wakeful pillow, he did not picture anything as delightful as, in after years, he was to realise Hilaria Eliot had been for those boys who at the time so casually and ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... eyes unheeded close, And comes to me a vision wondrous sweet. Such sights and sounds no wakeful hours disclose As then ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg

... was to bar them out—to wait, alone with her, for the life or death that was to come. He had walked miles in his restlessness, but could not have found again the paths he walked over. He had talked with some of the people who were wakeful in the night, but could scarce have told of any words he ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan

... and hold you awake, as they disturbed Rufinus long ago; but the odds are that they do not inspire you, like Rufinus, with the desire to write poetry. The short and simple language of profanity is more likely to come unbidden to the wakeful lips. Thus, as John Leech found out, the country in July is almost as dreadful at night as the town. Nay, thanks to the cow, we think the country may bear away the prize for all that is uncomfortable, all that is hostile to sleep and the Muses. Yet rustics always sleep very well, and no more ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... al-Rashid was one night wakeful exceedingly; so he called Masrur and said to him as soon as he came, "Fetch me Ja'afar in haste." Accordingly, he went out and returned with the Wazir, to whom said the Caliph, "O Ja'afar wakefulness hath ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... night—the thoughtful, watchful, wakeful, guardian night, with no cloud to sully its tremulous radiance. How pretty a fable, I reflect, would the ancients have associated with the Southern Cross, shimmering there in the serene sky! Dare I, at this inspiring ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... "He'm werry wakeful, Masser Al'erman. I t'ink he no sleep half he time, lately. All he a'tiverty and wiwacerty gone, an' he do no single t'ing but smoke. A gentle'um who smoke alway, Masser Al'erman, get to be a melercholy man, at last. I do t'ink 'ere be ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... certain Sala, who declares that he had it from the lips of Charles's favourite and close follower, the Seigneur de Boisi, a courtier who, after the curious custom of the time, shared even the bed of his master. This was confided to Boisi by the King in the deepest confidence, in the silence of the wakeful night: ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... before daylight, "Old Hickory" saw to it that every man was at his post. Leaning on their rifles, or grouped about the great guns, the men in silence saluted their beloved general, as he rode from post to post, in the thick fog of that long, wakeful night. ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell

... he have been such a young donkey to do as he did?" muttered Jerry; and then, feeling exceedingly drowsy, he refreshed himself with a cup of strong coffee to make him wakeful. ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn

... From her wakeful couch Madam Moores raised herself on her elbow, cupping her ear in her palm, and straining her glance down the long hallway. The tears had ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... a dreary year Must pass away ere the buds appear: Many a night of darksome sorrow Yield to the light of a joyless morrow, Ere birds again, on the clothed trees, Shall fill the branches with melodies. She will dream of meadows with wakeful streams; Of wavy grass in the sunny beams; Of hidden wells that soundless spring, Hoarding their joy as a holy thing; Of founts that tell it all day long To the listening woods, with exultant song; She will dream of evenings that die into nights, Where each sense ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... little longer wait they went to bed, and Hester slept, but Mary lay wakeful and fearing, until in the early morning, while it was yet dark, she heard the Elder slowly climb the stairs and go to his room. Then she also slept, hoping against hope, that they had ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... in the hope that quiet and country air would bring back sleep to his eyelids and steadiness to his nerves; but he had been there a week, and his hand was no steadier, his nights were no less wakeful. He fancied himself growing weaker day by day, and although the great authority in Harley Street had strictly forbidden any stimulant except one glass of stout with his mutton chop at luncheon, Brian, who was quite unable to eat the chop, found it impossible to lunch without plenty of dry ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... seemed indifferent to the world, the kind that doesn't care— That's satisfied with just enough to eat and drink and wear; That doesn't laugh when others do or cry when others weep, But seems to walk the wakeful world half dormant and asleep; Then came the war, and soldiers marched and drums began to roll, And suddenly we realized his body ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest

... had gone by without alarm. No further signals were seen. No runners came in. Poor Mrs. Bennett, under the influence of some soothing medicine, had fallen asleep. The doctor, coming in late from a visit to the hospital, found Harris still wakeful, but not so feverish, and 'Tonio, worn and wearied, stretched on a Navajo blanket, seemed sleeping soundly on the side piazza, just without the door. The general and Willett had sat and smoked, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... before Cayley came up? It wasn't that he wanted his friends, Beverley and Gillingham, to be asleep before he started on his business at the pond; all that he wanted was to be sure that they were safely in their bedrooms. Cayley's business would make no noise, give no sign, to attract the most wakeful member of the household, so long as the household was really inside the house. But if he wished to reassure himself about his guests, he would have to wait until they were far enough on their way to sleep not to be disturbed by him as he came up to ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne

... one must set a hand To burnish up the task, And hush and hush the old demand A wakeful heart will ask. But with a star's clear eye on me, O, I can hear it said, "What souls there be that only see The mending ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz

... love and ecstasy, vii. 220. O thou who deignest come at sorest sync, iii.78. O thou who dost comprise all Beauty's boons! vii. 107. O thou who dyest hoariness with black, viii. 295. O thou who fearest Fate, i. 56. O thou who for thy wakeful nights wouldst claim my love to boon, iii. 26. O thou who givest to royal state sweet savour, ii. 3. O thou who gladdenest man by speech and rarest quality, ix. 322. O thou who seekest innocence to 'guile, iii. 137. O thou who seekest parting, safely fare! ii. 319. O thou who seekest separation, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... stamps pounded on. If they ceased a moment, there followed the sob of the pump, or the clang of a truck-load of drills dumped on the floor of the hoisting-works, or the thunder of rock in the iron-bound ore-bins. All was silence on the hill; but a wakeful figure wrapped in white went up and down the empty porches, light as a dead leaf on the wind. It was the mother, wasting her night in grievous thinking, sighing with weariness, pining for sleep, dreading the day. How should they presume to tell that woman's story, knowing ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... heard a sound, either, all day but that one now of his own muttering voice. It had been a day of absolute silence—the first he had known in his life. And he had not slept a wink. Not for all these wakeful nights and the days of fighting, planning, talking; not for all that last night of danger and hard physical toil upon the gulf, had he been able to close his eyes for a moment. And yet from sunrise to sunset he had been lying prone on ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... my pillow with feelings I had never carried to it before. I verily believed myself to be a free woman. I was wakeful for a long time, and I had no sooner fallen asleep, than I was roused by fire-bells. I jumped up, and hurried on my clothes. Where I came from, every body hastened to dress themselves on such occasions. The white people ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... of matrons fair and chaste. And pleasure without labor claim— Say, trollop, canst thou do the same?" "The feasts of gods are glorious fare. No doubt, to those who're welcome there; But not for such detested things.— You talk of matron's lips and kings; I, who with wakeful care and pains Against the winter hoard my grains, Thee feeding upon ordure view.— The altars you frequent, 'tis true; But still are driv'n away from thence, And elsewhere, as of much offence. A life of toil you will not lead, And so have nothing when you need. Besides all this, you talk with ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... took a final sweeping survey of the strange room which was the last word in comfort, pressed off the lights, and found himself between cool sheets in the wakeful dark. Again he heard Paula Forrest laugh; again he sensed her in terms of silver and steel and strength; again, against the dark, he saw that inimitable knee-lift of her gown. The bright vision of it was almost an irk to him, so ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... were other things than this to think about, and he thought much as he lay wakeful in bed that night and as he dressed next morning. The proceedings at the adjourned inquest had puzzled him; left him doubtful and uncertain. He was not sure about the jealousy theory. He was not sure about Mrs. Saumarez, ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... said, wakeful as earlier, but without moving his heavy head or opening his eyes, "do you remember the first evening I ever saw you? You came down the middle of the room all by yourself, like something in the theater, where the stage has been cleared for the principal character to make an effect. ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... Salutis," 1659, observed that "this coffa-drink hath caused a great sobriety among all nations: formerly apprentices, clerks, &c., used to take their morning draughts in ale, beer, or wine, which often made them unfit for business. Now they play the good-fellows in this wakeful and civil drink. The worthy gentleman, Sir James Muddiford, who introduced the practice hereof first in London, deserves much respect of the whole nation." Here it appears, what is most probable, that the use of this berry was introduced ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... matters. When they went to bed all were tired, and neglected to take the usual precautions against surprise; moreover, at that season they did not fear molestation. They slept heavily, none keeping watch. Robertson alone was wakeful and suspicious; and even during his light slumbers his keen and long-trained ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... peeping in to satisfy himself. 'The game of that is, that they always leave it open with a catch, so that the dog, who's got a bed in here, may walk up and down the passage when he feels wakeful. Ha! ha! Barney 'ticed him ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... cannot play,—cannot talk even as he used to do,—and that perhaps his "Heavenly Father will take him away to be with him in the better world," disturb you for a time only. Sometimes however they come back to your thought on a wakeful night, and you dream about his suffering, and think—why it is not you, but Charlie, who is sick? The thought puzzles you; and well it may, for in it lies the ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell

... turned to throw some more wood on my fire—preparing to indulge myself with a little camp-fire cheerfulness as I dozed off—my eyes fell once more on that grim line of locked doors; and my curiosity, and an idea, made me wakeful again. I had burned down one door—why not another? Why ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne

... only light! III 1 O nether gloom, to me Brighter than morning to the wakeful eye! Take me to dwell with thee. Take me! What help? Zeus' daughter with fell might Torments me sore. I may not look on high, Nor to the tribe of momentary men.— Oh, whither, then, Should it avail to fly? Ah! whither ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... began, and, wakeful as Lucy was, she found the low sweet tones lulled her a little. But she did not like this; she had a perverse intention of staying awake till Rose got into bed, so instead of attending to the holy words, she pinched herself, and pulled ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge

... wakeful; so much so that our recumbent position began to grow wearisome, and by little and little we found ourselves sitting up; the clothes well tucked around us, leaning against the head-board with our four knees drawn up close together, and our two noses bending ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... might seep. The murmur of the arroyo helped to increase this inclination to repose, and, perhaps, I might have slept; but at that moment chancing to look around, my eyes rested upon an object that again drove sleep far away, and I was soon as wakeful as ever. ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... imagination was so strong that the actual fact—the real Beatrice, if you will—became as nothing to that same fact transmuted through idealizing thought. De Quincey was early impressed by the remarkable fashion in which dreams or reveries weave together the separate strands of wakeful existence. Before he was two years old he had, he says, "a remarkable dream of terrific grandeur about a favorite nurse, which is interesting to myself for this reason,—that it demonstrates my dreaming tendencies ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... rather hear the roar of lions about my resting-place than the vicious hum of these infernal wee beasts; and I may be allowed to decide, having listened to both: the latter never failed to keep me wakeful through fair fright; but when well worn with fatigue, after a shiver and a start or two, I have slept sound, in safe company, although the crunch and roar of the nobler varmint sounded near enough to make our terrified horses press to the watch-fire with breathings thick and loud,—a ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... grey hours of the dawning found her still wakeful under the same green silk coverlid beneath which she had slept so many, many nights with Happy Dreaming of the Wonderful Mr. Bennet and his very ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox

... followed strict military rules in regard to food and all other details when he was at war, became in course of time haughty and arrogant. He was conspicuously incorruptible in the matter of bribes, but was not of a pleasant or kindly nature. He showed himself more wakeful than any other general, and, as he desired his associates also to be alert, he wrote orders on twelve tablets (such as are made out of linden wood) [almost] every evening, and bade a man carry them to various ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio

... I made up for myself was sufficiently uncomfortable to give me a wakeful night, and I thought a good deal of what the unlucky Dutchman had told me. I was not so much puzzled by Blanche Stroeve's action, for I saw in that merely the result of a physical appeal. I do not suppose she had ever really cared for her husband, ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... slumbering; but the women, depressed with the thoughts that they are leaving their home and loved friends and neighbors, perhaps forever, their hearts filled with forebodings of danger and misfortune, cast only wakeful eyes upon the darkened plain or up to the inscrutable stars that are shining with marvelous brightness in the azure firmament. Far into the night they wake and watch, silently weeping until nature is exhausted, and a sleep, troubled with ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... little one, he tires your arm, He's such a kicking, crowing, wakeful rogue, He almost wears our lives out with his noise Just at day-dawning, when we wish to sleep. What! you young villain, would you clench your fist In father's curls? a dusty father, sure, And you're as clean as wax. Ay, you may laugh; But if you live a seven years more or so, These ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow

... of branches in the morning breeze; there is the music of a sunny shower against the window; there is the matin song of birds. Several times lately I have lain wakeful when there sounded the first note of the earliest lark; it makes me almost glad of my restless nights. The only trouble that touches me in these moments is the thought of my long life wasted amid the senseless noises of man's world. Year after year this spot has known the same tranquillity; ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing

... suggested Peggy Bond. "She always takes an extra early start; she was speakin' lately o' going up their way;" but Mrs. Dow shook her head with a most melancholy look. "I'm impressed that something's befell her," she insisted. "I heard her a-groanin' in her sleep. I was wakeful the forepart o' the night,—'tis ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... the more loudly Mr. Lambert yelled, and the more wildly he waved, the further would any inhabitant of Ardrochan fly from the Deil's Den. He went to bed in a gloating joy, which kept him awake a while; and it was during those wakeful moments that a memory of "Monte Cristo" suggested that he should gain a practical advantage from what had so far been merely ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson

... 'Truth,' he says in this letter, 'is one and poor, like the cruse of Elijah's widow. Imagination is the bold face that multiplies its oil: and thou, the old cracked pipkin, that could not believe it could be put to such purposes.' It was to his correspondents, indeed to the incitement of their wakeful friendship, that he owes more perhaps than the mere materials of ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... these men's oars at first, and latterly the suppressed sounds of their voices, had excited the wrath of the wakeful sentinel in the courtyard, who now exalted his deep voice into such a horrid and continuous din, that it awakened his brute master, as savage a ban-dog as himself. His cry from a window, of "How now, Tearum, what's the matter, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... morning, to have Ruth come into her darkened bedroom and sit by her bed. For Harriet's wakeful night had left ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane

... while, to excessive grief. Her husband had no consolation to offer, and so remained, for the evening, silent and thoughtful. Andy Lovell did not sleep well that night. Certain things were suggested to his mind, and dwelt upon, in spite of many efforts to thrust them aside. Mrs. Lovell was wakeful also, as was evident to her husband from her occasional sighs, sobs, and restless movements; but no words passed between them. Both ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur

... danger, Mr. Garie sat watching by the bedside of his wife. She had been quite ill; but on the evening of which we write, although nervous and wakeful, was much better. The bleak winds of the fast approaching winter dealt unkindly with her delicate frame, accustomed as she was to the soft breezes of her ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... as soon as he turned in. He lay wakeful, thinking about Doris Cleveland. He envied her courage and fortitude, the calm assurance with which she seemed to face the world which was all about her and yet hidden from her sight. She was really an extraordinary young woman, ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... beside him, with her head bent forward so as to protect her face from the wind, which seared like a hot iron. She wore a hood of white fur lined with a darker fur, and when she lifted her face only her eyes, bright and wakeful, were visible. ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman

... "A more alive and wakeful people are not upon the earth than the citizens of Drowsytown. What calumniator has thus outraged them and me? Who told you this? Who ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... in that I can go to sleep at any moment; I am unlike him (I believe) in that I am always doing so. One makes no apology for doing so on Sunday afternoon; the apology indeed should come from the others, the wakeful parties.... ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... Hound Are safe and sound, Beast in byre and Steed in stall; And the Watch-dog's bark, As soon as it's dark Bays wakeful guard ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various

... wrote; but this side of his character he kept mainly for people of high rank, accustomed to deference, and indifferent or hostile to his aims. To others, especially to women whom he liked, he was considerate and courteous, but any assertion of social superiority aroused his wakeful independence. His countrymen of his own order had long displayed these ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... I do with it! You ask about my health; I am as well as I can be without sleep. I have had only one really good night since the baby came, to say nothing of those before; some worse than others, to be sure; but all wakeful to a degree that tries my faith not a little. I don't see what is to hinder my going crazy one of these days. However, I won't if I can help it. George goes to Germany this ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... the cavern in all its extent. Opening his half-closed eyes, therefore, he watched the proceedings of his host, and in doing so, as well as in speculating on his strange character and surroundings, he became somewhat wakeful. ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne



Words linked to "Wakeful" :   open-eyed, shallow, watchful, light, awake, waking, alert, vigilant



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