Mist

“ The whole world was mist once long ago and some day it will all go back to mist,
Our skulls and lungs are more water than bone and tissue
And all poets love dust and mist because all the last answers
Go running back to dust and mist. ”

“ Of early mornings the mountain bases in the distances are billows of smoked-pearl mist; as the light strengthens and the temperature rises, the mist rises with it, dissipating gradually into thin wreaths of dainty rose-pink, faint orange—and nothingness. ”

“ A blue mist hiding the earth, hiding even every green thing from sight as it lay in wreaths in the hollows or crept up and up and up, leaving itself in clouds to cover all things until it met the sky. ”

“ The mist has descended and filled the valleys as if all the clouds of the heavens had fallen down, while the mountain-peaks, radiant with the sunlight, rise out of the mist like islands out of a deep sea. ”

“ Here and there a gray slab shone through the trees where the mist-deadened effect of the moonbeams made them stand out—truly a monument to the dead. The mist just thick enough to bring out the loneliness and decay of the place. ”

“ A mist is rising from the water, and the shore is growing grey and heavy as the light in the west recedes and night creeps in from the ocean. She watches the waves and the mist till all is mist without ”

“ Have you never seen, in those last instants of twilight, a shred of mist rise from the waters of a river, the surface of a fen, the waves of the sea, or the deep heart of a mountain tarn,—a shred of mist that floats slowly in the void, and now looks like a woman moving, walking, trailing her gown behind her, now like a white veil fastening the tresses of an invisible sylph, now a ghost which rises in the air hiding its yellow bones beneath a winding-sheet against which is still seen outlined its angular shape? ”

“ Mist of some sort, or mirage, or confusion of light or of cloud, are the general facts; the distance may vary in different climates at which the effects of mist begin, but they are always present; and therefore, in all probability, it is meant that we should enjoy them.... We surely need not wonder that mist and all its phenomena have been made delightful to us, since our happiness as thinking beings must depend on our being content to accept only partial knowledge even in those matters which chiefly concern us. ”

“ Shoots transparent light into a moving mist
That twists spirally
Like a butterfly at play.
In the heart of the mist, morning opens, a
gold flower,
Superbly, like a dawning passion.
Can night be the consummation
Of this expectant white hour? ”

“ LOVE IN A MIST.
Light love in a mist, by the midsummer moon misguided,
Scarce seen in the twilight garden if gloom insist,
Seems vainly to seek for a star whose gleam has derided
⁠Light love in a mist. ”

“ Shapes flickered across the bows, pillars of mist that rode the waters, robed in films of tattered shadows. Gigantic forms towered to dizzy heights above him, shaking out shredded shrouds of cloud. The vast draperies of the fog swayed and hung and trembled as he brushed them; the white twilight deepened to a sombre gloom. And now it grew thinner; the fog became a mist, and the mist a haze, and the haze floated away and vanished into the blue of the heavens.
All around lay a sea of pearl and sapphire, lapping, lapping on a silver shoal. ”

“ Of course for persons who have never seen in their lives a cloud vanishing on a mountain-side, and whose conceptions of mist or vapor are limited to ambiguous outlines of spectral hackney-coaches and bodiless lamp-posts, discern through a brown combination of sulphur, soot, and gaslight, there is yet some hope; we cannot, indeed, tell them what the morning mist is like in mountain air, but far be it from us to tell them that they are incapable of feeling its beauty if they will seek it for themselves. ”

“ Apparently, it has no foundation whatever; it rises from cloud, it is lost in cloud, and it spans an inpenetrable abyss. A mist, which no wind disperses, involves both extremities of our intellectual career, and we are seen to pass like shadows across the fantastic, inexplicable interval. ”

“ The sixth verse explains it, 'There went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.' That mist covered everything which God-Spirit had created--all the host of them; birds, beasts, and flowers, mountains, seas, lakes, rivers, even man: God's own image and likeness. Because the mist is over everything we do not see the world and man as they really exist. So people have come to believe that God made man from the dust; for the mist that is spoken of is not a mist like we see rising from the sea, or in the fields of an evening. ”

“ Sometimes, for hours, there would come a miracle of blue sky, white cloud, and yellow light, but always between dark and dark the rain would fall and the mist creep up the mountains and steam from the tops—only to roll together from either range, drip back into the valleys, and lift, straightway, as mist again. ”

“ When the morning sun peered over the wall of mist, and she saw it was the sun, and she saw him, flung on the sand at her feet, then she knew that he was a man, only a man, pallid as death and smeared with blood. ”

“ The gloom upon them deepens; and they soon present to our view a ponderous mass of almost level surface. From time to time a fleecy tuft of mist, with yet some gleaming light left upon it, drops down upon the dense floor of grey, and loses itself in the opaque and impenetrable mass. ”

“ Even as when the South Wind sheddeth a mist over the peaks of a mountain, a mist that the shepherd loveth not, but that to the robber is better than night, and a man can see only so far as he casteth a stone ”

“ The mists are rising even there as he turns to breast the hill, the cloud wreaths sweep solemnly in from the sea in stately curves, and as he pauses on the summit for a last look downwards, lo! there is nothing at all in earth, or sea, or sky, save himself and a grey, encircling mist. Love and Friendship, Life and Death, Sunshine and Shade! ”

“ From the foaming, dashing water, which during the centuries was strong enough to eat into the rock, arose the light, lovely mist that in cycles of time was in its turn strong enough to wear it away. Through the mist floated the impalpable radiance that, in æons to come, when rock should again flash fiery through unending space, and water should have evaporated to await fresh form, would still continue to illuminate the Divine Will. ”

“ We wander in mist and darkness shaping a vague course for home. And then suddenly the mists are blown away, glory fills the air, and there is no more doubt, only before us is a splendour making all things clear and lighting us over a deathless sea. ”

“ I edged forward and away from the shoreline, moving onto slightly higher ground. The mist tore again and I saw the window clearly, its glow touching the swirling fog outside with a pale phosphorescence. The bright window seemed a warm invitation, not dangerous at all.
For perhaps a full minute I crouched motionless on the cold sand while the mist curled around me. Every sense strained to detect the unseen menace lurking behind the veil of darkness. Nothing. Not a sound, not a quiver of sensation, not a single vibrating wave of thought. ”

“ At first there seems to be a low mist rolling over the burying ground and then suddenly, to your amazement, the mist or cloud dissolves itself into shafts or pillars of the height of the white figure of Devil Anse above the grave. ”

“ I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me That my soul cannot resist: A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain. ”

“ It was a night to drive any man indoors. Not only was the darkness impenetrable, but the raw mist enveloping hill and valley made the open road anything but desirable to a belated wayfarer like myself. ”

“ When the sun rises and chases away the haze, the hills on the side where it lifts begin to grow clearer, and look blue, and seem to smoke with the vanishing mists; and the buildings reveal their lights and shadows; through the thinner vapour they show only their lights and through the thicker air nothing at all. This is when the movement of the mist makes it part horizontally, and then the edges of the mist will be indistinct against the blue of the sky, and towards the earth it will look almost like dust blown up. ”

“ Picking our way amid the pelting mist to the top of a slippery hillock from which we can look right down into the very heart of the fall, we see, swinging against the mist, a perfect rainbow, a complete double circle, a blaze of lustre. ”

“ A mist, but not of age, crept over her vision, and through it she saw her husband descend to the ground, and then, as if moving through a cloud, she saw two female forms sinking, as it were, toward the earth, and coming steadily toward her. ”

“ The atmosphere, when full of mist, is quite devoid of blueness, and only appears of the colour of clouds, which shine white when the weather is fine. And the more you turn to the west the darker it will be, and the brighter as you look to the east. And the verdure of the fields is bluish in a thin mist, but grows grey in a dense one.
The buildings in the west will only show their illuminated side, where the sun shines, and the mist hides the rest. ”

“ Above the meadows, where all the flowers were withered and dead, above the fields, where the corn ears waved no more, floated dim phantom forms, all pale and wan, faint pictures of the past. Over the grand eternal woods and hills a biting mist was draped in clinging folds, as if all nature, trembling into dust, must vanish in its wreaths. But one bright thought pierced these dark fogs of nature and the soul, turning them to a white gleaming mist, a dew all glittering with rainbow colours, and gently lighting upon flowers. ”

“ But the best veil was the moist network of the protective mist. The mist was like a curtain of ashes, dense, grayish, with phosphorescent spots. One could not see farther than ten yards. It became thicker and thicker as they passed down the old streets perpendicular to the Seine. ”

“ My hands grow cold and my flesh creeps; and yet the night is warm. Only the mist is cold, this mysterious mist that trails the dead before us and sucks from them their last, creeping life. By morning they will be pale and green and their blood congealed and black. ”

“ The lights in the sky come out and shine through a thin mist—there is nothing like that mist, it is so fine and soft. Allons. You are sleepy. You bless the good God. You stretch pine branches, wrap in your blanket, and lie down to sleep. If it is winter and you have a friend, you lie close. ”

“ Agile bats wheel and plunge noiselessly in pursuit of invisible prey. A few bulrushes in a near-by clump are slightly disturbed. The night life has begun to move in the slough, for it is nature’s law that it must kill to live.
The veil of mist thickens—the stars in the depths disappear—the moon’s reflection becomes a nebula of pale effulgence, and is finally lost in vaporous obscurity. Like the soft fabric of forgetfulness that time weaves over sorrow, the mist envelopes the tarn. Like wraiths of dead years, filmy wreaths trail tenderly and delicately through the solemn woods. ”

“ And as they rise, little wisps of mist become detached from the main body and float up and disappear, until gradually the whole rising mass is rent asunder by the currents of warm air into shreds and wreaths, which curl and float and soar and at last lose themselves in the warmth that now wraps the earth. ”

“ Then the dawn broke, the black gloom fading into gray, the clouds of fog in the deep valley below us rising slowly until the rays of the rising sun lifted them to the mountain tops, reddening the mist into grotesque beauty, and revealing the green glades beneath. It was a wild, desolate scene, and we paused on the edge of what seemed a sheer precipice to gaze. Even Nichols stopped, and looked down, pointing to the ridge of rock along which the barely perceptible trail ran. ”

“ Still misty, drizzling weather without snow or ice. The pines standing in the ocean of mist seen from the Cliffs are trees in every stage of transition from the actual to the imaginary. The near are more distant, the distant more faint, till at last they are a mere shadowy cone in the distance. You can command only a circle of thirty or forty rods in diameter. As you advance, the trees gradually come out of the mist, and take form before your eyes. You are reminded of your dreams. Life looks like a dream. ”

“ He had not paused at my appeal and the mist had swallowed him. But at the break in my sentence, his voice came back in good-natured tones and I heard:
"Supper will be ready at nine, and there are beds for all. Enter, sir; you are the first to arrive, but the others can not be far behind." ”

“ Listen: the sun will not shine to-morrow at the dawn; already the mist gathers thick and it will hold, therefore the Shepherdess and the Dwarf will be hurled from the head of the statue, while you and the Bald-pate, having witnessed their end, will be kept alive till the autumn sacrifice, then to be offered up with the other victims. ”

“ In the centre of the heavens above us, the sun began to break through the mist, forming a clear space, which, as it grew wider by the gradual retreat of the mist and clouds, was enclosed or surrounded by a complete circle of hazy light, much brighter than the general aspect of the atmosphere, but not so brilliant as the sun itself. ”

“ Early white mists should never frighten us from starting, but we must judge them by feel, texture and direction of movement. An early ominous mist has a different quality, and lies differently from a simple mist of the hour.
During the day feeling or instinct is still our principal guide as to the durable character of changes or of threats of changes. More especially we go by the feeling of the wind. With a good wind, local clouds may be disregarded. ”