To see her going to
wrack and ruin shocked me terribly.
The inky ragged
wrack, flying before a nor'-west wind, makes you dizzy with its headlong speed that depicts the rush of the invisible air.
"I doan' want to go fool'n 'long er no
wrack. We's doin' blame' well, en we better let blame' well alone, as de good book says.
'Tis thus, O boy, that Autumn comes, the cold Pitiless autumn of the
wrack and mist, Autumn, the season of the cloudless sky, Autumn, of biting blasts, the time of blight And desolation; following the chill Stir of disaster, with a shout it leaps Upon us.
The
wrack had thickened to seaward, and the coast was but a blurred line.
It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March, with a pale moon, lying on her back as though the wind had tilted her, and flying
wrack of the most diaphanous and lawny texture.
The library doors were shut, and I closed the secret one behind me before opening the other and peering out through a
wrack of bluish smoke; and there lay Captain Harris, sure enough, breathing his last in the arms of one constable, while another was seated on the table with a very wry face, twisting a tourniquet round his arm, from which the blood was dripping like raindrops from the eaves.
I heard the
wrack, As earth and sky would mingle; but myself Was distant; and these flaws, though mortals fear them, As dangerous to the pillared frame of Heaven, Or to the Earth's dark basis underneath, Are to the main as inconsiderable And harmless, if not wholesome, as a sneeze To man's less universe, and soon are gone.
The rest in imitation to like Armes Betook them, and the neighbouring Hills uptore; So Hills amid the Air encounterd Hills Hurl'd to and fro with jaculation dire, That under ground they fought in dismal shade; Infernal noise; Warr seem'd a civil Game To this uproar; horrid confusion heapt Upon confusion rose: and now all Heav'n Had gone to
wrack, with ruin overspred, Had not th' Almightie Father where he sits Shrin'd in his Sanctuarie of Heav'n secure, Consulting on the sum of things, foreseen This tumult, and permitted all, advis'd: That his great purpose he might so fulfill, To honour his Anointed Son aveng'd Upon his enemies, and to declare All power on him transferr'd: whence to his Son Th' Assessor of his Throne he thus began.
So, the Bride had mounted into her handsome chariot, incidentally accompanied by the Bridegroom; and after rolling for a few minutes smoothly over a fair pavement, had begun to jolt through a Slough of Despond, and through a long, long avenue of
wrack and ruin.
A dull
wrack was drifting slowly across the sky, and a star or two twinkled dimly here and there through the rifts of the clouds.
As I approached I found Dejah Thoris lying prone upon her silks and furs, her lithe form
wracked with sobs.