First MOLOCH, horrid King
besmear'd with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents tears, Though for the noyse of Drums and Timbrels loud Their childrens cries unheard, that past through fire To his grim Idol.
You are repaid by seeing the child
besmear his face with sugar; by witnessing how the fool's ecstasy makes a greater fool of him than ever; by watching the dog's nature come out over his bone.
A man, so
besmeared that he might have been a sorely wounded soldier creeping back to consciousness on a field of slain, was rising from the pavement by the side of the grindstone, and looking about him with a vacant air.
At length he encamped, caused the bodies of the wagons to be dislodged from the wheels, covered with buffalo hide, and
besmeared with a compound of tallow and ashes; thus forming rude boats.
Thus arrayed, their hair
besmeared with fish oil, and their bodies bedaubed with red clay, they considered themselves irresistible.
When all were ready, the king sent them to her; but she got up in the night when all were asleep, and took three of her trinkets, a golden ring, a golden necklace, and a golden brooch, and packed the three dresses--of the sun, the moon, and the stars--up in a nutshell, and wrapped herself up in the mantle made of all sorts of fur, and
besmeared her face and hands with soot.
After a little rolling about, in a close scuffle which caused the faces of both to be
besmeared with blood, the man took his knee from Neville's chest, and rose, saying: 'There!
The constables, also, discovered, between the bed and sacking of the unhappy man, a shirt and neck-handkerchief both marked with the initials of his name, and both hideously
besmeared with the blood of the victim.
Some drank till they were intoxicated; others swallowed the steaming blood of the cattle slaughtered for their suppers, and then, being sick from drunkenness, they cast it up again, and were
besmeared with filth and gore.
Besmeared with mire; his saturated clothes clinging with a damp embrace about his limbs; his beard unshaven, his face unwashed, his meagre cheeks worn into deep hollows,--a more miserable wretch could hardly be, than this man who now cowered down upon the widow's hearth, and watched the struggling flame with bloodshot eyes.
His bloated body and shrunken legs--their deformity enhanced a hundredfold by the fantastic dress--the glassy eyes, contrasting fearfully with the thick white paint with which the face was
besmeared; the grotesquely-ornamented head, trembling with paralysis, and the long skinny hands, rubbed with white chalk--all gave him a hideous and unnatural appearance, of which no description could convey an adequate idea, and which, to this day, I shudder to think of.
I could not quite understand it, for I am sufficiently sophisticated to know that this is a symptom of love and I certainly did not love this filthy little barbarian with her broken, unkempt nails and her skin so
besmeared with mud and the green of crushed foliage that it was difficult to say what color it originally had been.
besmear - spread or daub (a surface)