glitterance

plural glitterances

1. poeticA glittering, a sparkling with light.

   And now had Thalaba Performed his last ablutions, and he stood And gazed upon the little boat […] Till from the glitterance of the sunny main He turned his aching eyes, And then upon the beach he laid him down And watched the rising tide.

   1801, Robert Southey, “The Twelfth Book”, in Thalaba the Destroyer, volume II, London: […] [F]or T[homas] N[orton] Longman and O[wen] Rees, […], by Biggs and Cottle, […], →OCLC, page 300

   2 more examples

   As the rooks, at dawn of day, Bestirring them to dry their feathers chill, Some speed their way a-field; and homeward some, Returning, cross their flight; while some abide, And wheel around their airy lodge: so seem’d That glitterance, wafted on alternate wing, As upon certain stair it came, and clash’d Its shining.

   1814, Dante Alighieri, trans. Henry Francis Cary, The Divine Comedy, canto 21

   Magnificent as the archangel’s glance Turning a farewell look on primal earth Of light ineffable, ere he stretched forth His crimson pinions o’er the wide expanse Of young creation, sleeping in the trance That love had pour’d around its innocent birth, When seraphs mingled in its infant mirth, Slow sinks the Autumn sunset’s glitterance! O the brave architecture of the skies! […] Very well indeed, Harry, for an impromptu; glitterance is an ill phrase, a vile phrase—Peter, for the sake of the metre; however——

   1830, “The Pentagonals”, in The National Magazine, volume 1, number 1, page 481