enchain

As Johnson wrote, “to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride, unwilling to measure its desires by its strength.”

From Slate ● May 31, 2012

At every approach of horseman, cart, or carriage, I turned fearfully, certain I should see some minister of injustice come to enchain us.

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson

Tie your knots, she sang again and again, enchain! — enchain! — enchain me!

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson

He doth enchain us with this common end, That he find one who will his prowess bend To the attainment of his livelihood.

From Accolon of Gaul with Other Poems by Madison Julius Cawein

Surely with these you can enchain a man's heart.

From Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales Second Series by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

Rousseau enchains passion in its service, as Madame de la Fayette, as even Prévost, had not been able to do before.

From A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 From the Beginning to 1800 by George Saintsbury

What spell enchains her to this gentle care?

From French Classics by William Cleaver Wilkinson

Disordered, farouche as is his style its spiritual note enchains me.

From Melomaniacs by James Huneker

Where Winter Scythia's waste enchains, And monstrous shapes roar to the ruthless storm, Not Phoebus' smile can cheer the dreadful plains, Or soil accursed with balmy life inform.

From The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes by George Gilfillan

I have one of those souls I have described; I see it clearly; but the empire of the senses enchains my will, and I have ever been and ever shall be bad.

From The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

When we first encounter the character, enchained in the dungeon at the opening of Act II, Florestan rises from exhaustion and cries out, “Gott! welch’ Dunkel hier!”

From New York Times ● Mar. 17, 2017

“With regard to black people, I think they are tired of seeing themselves enchained and downtrodden.”

From New York Times ● May 18, 2016

If my imagination weren't enchained by so much witless tradition and conformity, I might tag this segment to some more majestic and impromptu pattern of my own devising, one that reaches clear across the ecliptic.

From Slate ● Jul. 12, 2012

In The Golden Bough, Sir James Frazer describes how a tribesman chosen to be king must be enchained and thrashed before his coronation.

From Time Magazine Archive

Eisman was enchained, however, by FrontPoint Partners and, by extension, Morgan Stanley.

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis

"Mr. Chillingworth had something to relate to him or to propose, of a nature which, perchance, has had the effect of enchaining all his attention—he called him from the room."

From Varney the Vampire Or the Feast of Blood by Thomas Preskett Prest

‘I am inclined,’ he says, ‘to write a good deal; for there can be nothing so remembrancing and enchaining as a good long letter, be it composed of what it may.’

From Life of John Keats His Life and Poetry, his Friends, Critics and After-fame by Sidney Colvin

A coughing and shuffling of the feet awakened him out of his enchaining dream, as it were.

From Weird Tales. Vol. I by E. T. A. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus) Hoffmann

Hence it is that Beethoven broke deliberately several, though not indeed very many, of Bach's more enchaining rules, while Mozart, in his operas at least, had a large amount of Romance worked into his music.

From War Letters of a Public-School Boy by Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

The disfranchised conscience in a smooth, unresisting world, becomes an enchaining conversation, an all-narrating fable.

From Henry of Ofterdingen: A Romance. by Friedrich von Hardenberg