The darkest days were nigh.
The French and English were sufficiently equal in strength to make the task of government well nigh impossible.
With slightly sweaty or greasy hands it's nigh on impossible to grasp the player adequately.
Otkar continues to answer " Not yet," adding at last " When thou shalt see the fields bristling with an iron harvest, and the Po and the Ticino swollen with sea-floods, inundating the walls of the city with iron billows, then shall Karl be nigh at hand."
He depicts her quick changes of colour, her dishevelled hair, her panting breast, her apparent increase of stature as the god draws nigh and fills her with his divine afflatus.