ablution, light on, Keep the ball rolling

"Bright Star" by John Keats

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

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ablution

əˈbluːʃ(ə)n/

noun

formalhumorous

1. an act of washing oneself.

   "the women performed their ablutions"

   synonyms:

   washing, cleansing, bathing, showering, scrubbing, purification; More

   • a ceremonial act of washing parts of the body or sacred containers.
   • BRITISH

     (in army slang) a building or room containing washing facilities and toilets.

     plural noun: the ablutions

light (up)on someone or something

 

1. Lit. to land on someone or something; to settle on someone or something. (Upon is formal and less commonlyused than on.) Three butterflies lit on the baby, causing her to shriek with delight. The bees lit on the clover blossomand pulled it to the ground. Her glance lit upon a dress in the store window.

2. Fig. to arrive at something by chance; to happen upon something. The committee lit upon a solution that pleasedalmost everyone. We just happened to light upon this idea as we were talking to each other.

See also: light

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

light on

Also, light upon. Happen upon, come across, discover. For example, John was delighted to light on a new solution tothe problem, or We were following the path when suddenly we lit upon a cave. [Second half of 1400s]

See also: light

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Keep the ball rolling
Meaning
Maintain a level of activity in and enthusiasm for a project.
Origin
The American expression 'keep the ball rolling' was preceded by the similar, now archaic, British phrase 'keep the ball up'. They had much the same meaning, the earlier one alludes to keeping a ball in the air, i.e. conveying the notion of keeping an activity going. This was used figuratively by the radical social philosopher Jeremy Bentham, in a letter to George Wilson in 1781, referring to his efforts to keep a conversation going:

"I put a word in now and then to keep the ball up."

Bentham may be long dead but continues to be radical. He didn't opt for the traditional coffin, buried six feet under, but willed that his body be stuffed, mounted and put on display. It is exhibited in a cabinet at University College, London (although the severed head has now been removed). As a student at the University in the 1960s I was one of many who took the opportunity to open the cabinet doors to see Bentham peering back through the waxy glass - quite disconcerting.
The 'keep the ball rolling' version of the phrase owes its origin and popularity to the US presidential election of July 1840. That election is widely regarded as introducing all the paraphernalia of present-day elections, i.e. campaign songs, advertising slogans and publicity stunts of all kinds. The unpopular incumbent President Martin Van Buren was pitted against Whig candidates, General William Harrison, a war hero who had fought against the Shawnee Indians at Tippecanoe, and John Tyler. The Whig candidates revelled in a folksy 'cider-drinking, log-cabin, men of the people' image and adopted the first known political slogan - 'Tippecanoe and Tyler, too'. A song of the same name was considered to have sung Harrison into the presidency:

Don't you hear from every quarter, quarter, quarter,
Good news and true,
That swift the ball is rolling on
For Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.

Harrison's campaign literature referred to Victory Balls. These weren't, as we might expect, dance parties that celebrated his famous victory, but ten-foot diameter globes made of tin and leather, which were pushed from one campaign rally to the next. His supporters were invited to attend rallies and push the ball on to the next town, chanting 'keep the ball rolling'.

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