"Bier" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hurt with horn of hart, it brings thee to they bier; But tusk of boar shall leeches heal, thereof ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... pardon, and how the Pope declared that he should never be forgiven until the staff in his hand blossomed. So now he is on his way back to Venus. Venus calls him; he struggles with Wolfram, and is about to break away when the body of Elisabeth is carried by. Tannhaeuser falls by the side of the bier; the Pope's staff, which has burgeoned, is brought on; and so the ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... from infection, generally had the bodies taken out of the houses and laid before the doors, where the early morn found them in heaps, exposed to the affrighted gaze of the passing stranger. It was no longer possible to have a bier for every corpse—three or four were generally laid together; husband and wife, father and mother, with two or three children, were frequently borne to the grave on the same bier; and it often happened that two ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls, all silvered o'er with white; When lofty trees I see barren of leaves, Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, And summer's green all girded up in sheaves, Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard, Then of thy beauty do I question make, That thou among the wastes of time must go, Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake And die as fast as they see others grow; And nothing 'gainst Time's ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... that of the nave were covered with a black carpet. The pulpit, also draped in black and decorated with the Imperial eagle, and from which was pronounced the funeral oration over the marshal, was situated on the left in front of the bier; on the right was a seat of ebony decorated with Imperial arms, bees, stars, lace, fringes, and other ornaments in silver, which was intended for the prince arch-chancellor of the Empire, who presided at the ceremony. Steps ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... him forth and bury him. Death's peace Rest on his memory! Mercy by his bier Sits silent, or says only these few words— Let him who is without sin 'mongst ye all Cast ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... made him the previous week by the Spanish ambassador. He felt as if that same voice came from the bier and begged him for one more hymn to the dead. In spite of his emotion, he offered to sing ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... of its manifestations, as in song, the opera, and programme music, has a representative and illustrative character. In Chopin's "Funeral March" we hear the tolling of church bells, and it is easy to visualize the slow, straggling file of mourners following the bier; the composition here has a definite objective base drawn from external fact, and the "idea" is not exclusively musical, but admits an infusion of pictorial and literary elements. In listening to ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... going into the gate, when a company came out bearing a dead man. The Nazarene stopped to let the train pass. There was a woman among them crying. I saw his face soften with pity. He spoke to her, then went and touched the bier, and said to him who lay upon it dressed for burial, 'Young man, I say unto thee, Arise!' And instantly the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... Dona Inez's body removed from its grave, dressed in the royal robes and crowned, and swearing that he had really married her, he compelled all the court to pay her homage and to kiss her hand: then the body was placed on a bier and carried by night to the place prepared for it at Alcobaca, some seventy miles away. When six years later, in 1367, he came to die himself he left directions that they should be buried with their feet towards one another, that at the resurrection the ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... not thought thou wouldst kill him, for that he was a sorcerer." Ali replied, "O Commander of the Faithful, my Lord made me prevail to his slaughter." Then the Caliph sent the Chief of Police to the Jew's palace, where he found him lying headless; so he laid the body on a bier,[FN259] and carried it to Al-Rashid, who commanded to burn it. Whereat, behold, up came Kamar and kissing the ground before the Caliph, informed him that she was the daughter of Jew Azariah and that she had become a Moslemah. Then she renewed her profession of Faith ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... as by Adrian the emperor's edict they were of old, decoctores bonorum suorum, so he calls them, prodigal fools, to be publicly shamed, and hissed out of all societies, rather than to be pitied or relieved. [1893]The Tuscans and Boetians brought their bankrupts into the marketplace in a bier with an empty purse carried before them, all the boys following, where they sat all day circumstante plebe, to be infamous and ridiculous. At [1894]Padua in Italy they have a stone called the stone of turpitude, near ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... circles play an important part. In this system of Geometric patterns zones or friezes are reserved for designs into which human and animal figures enter. The center of interest is in the middle of the upper frieze, between the handles. Here we see a corpse upon a funeral bier, drawn by a two-horse wagon. To right and left are mourners arranged in two rows, one above the other. The lower frieze, which encircles the vase about at its middle, consists of a line of two-horse chariots and their drivers. The drawing ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... say you? oh, no! the day of misfortune, the day of despair was that when I heard the death-bell sound, and they told me— twas for her! when I asked for whom was that funeral bier, and they told me— twas for her! but from that hour I ceased to suffer. It's true, my heart— all there is a devouring fire— my brain— all there is confusion and clouds: but that fire, it was she who first kindled it! but among these gloomy clouds, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... impression on his childish imagination. It was a hot afternoon, and the burning rays of the sun fell perpendicularly upon a large cart by the side of which was stretched out one of those unfortunates, lifeless, yet with his eyes half opened. Two others were silently preparing a bamboo bier, showing no signs of anger or sorrow or impatience, for such is the character attributed to the natives: today it is you, tomorrow it will be I, they say to themselves. The people moved rapidly about without giving heed, women came up and ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... and thrice the bearers waded in and thrice they were forced to turn back lest the flood should sweep them down. At length six of the tallest and mightiest of the warriors of the High King took up the bier upon their shoulders, and strode in. And first the watchers on the bank saw the brown water swirl about their knees, and then they sank thigh-deep, and at last it foamed against their shoulders, yet still they braced themselves ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... of the season and sprinkled various excellent perfumes over it. And they also decked the hearse itself with garlands and rich hangings. Then placing the covered body of the king with that of his queen on that excellent bier decked out so brightly, they caused it to be carried on human shoulders. With the white umbrella (of state) held over the hearse with waving yak-tails and sounds of various musical instruments, the whole scene ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... to be observed. But I was an old friend of the man in command, and he and I were walking together. The bearers of the heavy bronze things got tired. They put down their load just here, and lounged away. My friend stepped up to the sort of wooden bier they were carrying, to see that all was right. He uncovered the Medusa, and turned her to the light of the lamp before the shrine. You never saw so strange and wild a thing!—the looks she threw at the ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... letters when our cart stopped on the Belgian side of a barricade at Maastricht, with Dutch soldiers on the other side. His examination was a little perfunctory, almost apologetic, and he did want to be friendly. You guessed that he was thinking he would like to go around the corner and have "ein Glas Bier" rather than search me. What a hearty "Auf wiedersehen!" he gave me when he saw that I was inclined to be ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... mentioned the following connected with her death:—The story runs that she was extremely anxious to see her Son again, and that whilst weeping, an angel appeared, and said, "Hail, O Mary! I bring thee here a branch of palm, gathered in paradise; command that it be carried before thy bier in the day of thy death, for in three days thy soul shall leave thy body, and thou shalt enter into paradise, where thy Son awaits thy coming." The angel then departed, but the palm-branch shed a light from every leaf, and the apostles, although scattered in different parts of the world, ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... street— Let not my soldiers in the train be seen, Nor banners float, nor lance or sabre gleam— Nor yet, to testify a vain regret, O'er my remains let costly shrine be set, Or sculptur'd stone, or gilded minaret; But let a herald go before my bier, Bearing on point of lance the robe I wear. Shouting aloud, 'Behold what now remains Of the proud conqueror of Syria's plains, Who bow'd the Persian, made the Christian feel The deadly sharpness of the Moslem ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various
... and cries he heeded nought His unresisting hands made haste to bind; Then of the alder-boughs a bier they wrought, And laid the corpse thereon, and 'gan to wind Homeward amidst the tangled wood and blind, And going slowly, at the eventide, Some leagues from Sardis did ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... for Ahab was so great that the memory of it reached posterity. (44) The funeral procession was unusually impressive; no less than thirty-six thousand warriors, their shoulders bared, marched before his bier. (45) Ahab is one of the few in Israel who have no portion in the world to come. (46) He dwells in the fifth division of the nether world, which is under the supervision of the angel Oniel. However, he is exempt from the tortures inflicted upon his ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... trumpeters sounded seven blasts; whereupon the funeral cortege made its appearance, issuing from the main entrance to the palace. First stalked the royal standard-bearer, carrying the royal standard, knotted and bound to its staff with white ribbon; then came the royal bier, which consisted of a platform borne by twelve men attired wholly in white—the mourning colour—and draped with white silk, heavily fringed with gold bullion, which swept the ground. Upon this platform was placed the royal throne of ivory heavily mounted in gold; and upon the throne, ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... of the German princes returned to Europe: and "there remained beneath the banner of Christ only a weak band of warriors faithful to their vow, a boy-chief, and a bier. When the crusaders of the other nations, assembled before St. Jean d'Acre, saw the remnant of that grand German army arrive, not a soul could restrain his tears. Three thousand men, all but stark naked, and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... TO ME; to thee The end of thy probation's strife, The archway to eternity, The portal of immortal life; To me the pall, the bier, the sod; To thee the palm of victory given. Enough, my heart; thank God! thank God! That thou hast been ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... theatres is spared this last piece of absurdity and the play is brought to a more appropriate close by Hamlet's stabbing himself on his bride's bier. ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... high honour,— The hillside for his pall; To lie in state, while angels wait, With stars for tapers tall; And the dark rock pines, like tossing plumes, Over his bier to wave; And God's own hand, in that lonely land, To lay him in ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... travelled day and night to see her, she died before his arrival, on the 29th of November, 1292. In overwhelming grief Edward accompanied her funeral to Westminster, a journey of thirteen days. Each evening the bier rested in the market-place of the town, where the procession halted, till the clergy came to convey it with solemn chantings to the chief church, where it was placed before the high altar. At each of these resting-places Edward raised a richly-carved market cross ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... saw her, He had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. And He came and touched the bier; and they that bare him stood still. And He said, Young man, I say unto thee, ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... the rigid fingers of the man called Andrew Paul, and, shaking his head sadly, drew her away from the improvised bier. He and the shivering Mr. Dillingford conducted her to the dining-room, where a single kerosene lamp gave out a feeble, rather ghastly light. The tall Bacon followed, the upper part of his person enveloped in the blanket Putnam Jones had hastily snatched from the mattress before ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... And grow one in the sense of this world's life.—And then, the last song When the dead man is praised on his journey—"Bear, bear him along, With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets! Are balm seeds not here To console us? The land has none left such as he on the bier. Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother!"—And then, the glad 55 chaunt Of the marriage—first go the young maidens, next, she whom we vaunt As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling.—And then, the great ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... their dead young king into the great hall, and laid him on a bier beside the body of his father, the good Earl Hamish, and the curtains were drawn and many candles and torches were lighted and set round the two biers, while two of the friars of St. Blane's ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... appeared in the form of a funeral before the death of many persons, with a bier and a black cloth, in the midst of a company about it, on every side, before and after it. The instances of this were so numerous, that it is plain, and past all dispute, that they infallibly foreknew the time of men's death: the difficulty is, whence they had this knowledge. It cannot be supposed ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... hair such as are seen on the tops of hearses, and I saw the wheels scattering the stones in the road, just as other wheels would have done. Then I saw a funeral of the same character, for all the world like a real funeral; there was the bier and the black drapery. I have seen more than one. If a young man was to be buried there would be a white sheet, or something that looked like one—and sometimes I have seen a ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... death's dark eye acquainted she had been made ere this, When to her son, her first-born, she gave the farewell kiss, And when afar she hastened beside her mother's bed, It followed all her faring with warning fraught and dread; It filled her with foreboding when standing by the bier: More sheaves to gather hopeth the harvester austere. So soon she saw her husband, that man of strength, succumb, She said with sorrow stricken: I knew that it would come!" She thought that he was chosen by God from earth to go, Would ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... laity generally accepted it as a matter of course, Among the great leaders in literature there was at least general acquiescence in it. Both Shakespeare and Milton recognise it, whether they fully accept it or not. Shakespeare makes the Duke of Bedford, lamenting at the bier of Henry V, say: ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... aught might comfort / the wife of Siegfried there. They drew the knight's attire / from off his body fair, From wounds the blood, too, washed they / and laid him on the bier. Then from all his people / a mighty wailing might ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... the Burgher some lager bier," ordered Madame Dort, on her invitation being accepted, the old nurse proceeding to execute the command with very ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... for two-and-forty hours after drinking it she should appear cold and lifeless; and when the bridegroom came to fetch her in the morning, he would find her to appearance dead; that then she would be borne, as the manner in that country was, uncovered on a bier, to be buried in the family vault; that if she could put off womanish fear, and consent to this terrible trial, in forty-two hours after swallowing the liquid (such was its certain operation) she would be sure to awake, as from a dream; and before she ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Thorndyke and Mr. Bastow was over, and all agreed they had never seen a more affecting spectacle than that at the churchyard when the two coffins were brought in. The distance was short, and the tenants had requested leave to carry the Squire's bier, while that of Mr. Bastow was borne by the villagers who had known and loved him. Behind followed all the magistrates and a great number of the gentry for miles round; the churchyard was crowded by every man, woman, and child in ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... lady to his brethren as to rightful heirs, and commanded them to love her faithfully; and from her lap, his illustrious soul willed to depart, returning to its realm, and for his body he willed no other bier.[23] ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... the sun's Seven old sisters wind the threads of the long lived ones, Land-of-the-Tower, where Aengus has thrown the gates apart, And Wood-of-Wonders, where one kills an ox at dawn To find it when night falls laid on a golden bier: Therein are many queens like Branwen, and Guinivere; And Niam, and Laban, and Fand, who could change to an otter or fawn And the wood-woman whose lover was changed to a blue-eyed hawk; And whether I go in my dreams by woodland, or dun, or shore, Or on the unpeopled waves with kings to ...
— In The Seven Woods - Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish Heroic Age • William Butler (W.B.) Yeats
... is not here— Such thoughts should shake my soul; nor now Where glory seals the hero's bier, Or binds his brow. ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... before him is exempted from reciting the Shemah,—from the prayer,—and from the phylacteries.(23) Those who carry the bier, and those who relieve them, and those who relieve the relief,—those who go before the bier, and those who follow it, who are required for the bier, are exempted from reciting the Shemah. But those not required for the bier are bound to recite ...
— Hebrew Literature
... came northward toward Londinium a funeral train, on the way to the cemeteries that lined the road outside the town, weaving in and out among the checkered shadows, stately and slow and solemn in its pomp of death. There was a bier, draped with a pall of sable velvet, and drawn by four white horses, pacing slow. Slaves and clients went on foot before and behind it; and beside it there walked a man, tall and of lordly bearing. His hand rested on the bier's edge; his face, bowed ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... drops in autumn showers Drip from the leaves upon the sodden ground. None saw her die but Lelaps, the swift hound, That watched her dumbly with a wistful fear, Till at the dawn, the horned wood-men found And bore her gently on a sylvan bier, To lie beside the sea,—with many an ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... been, like the Emperor Titus, the delight of mankind in his day. He was a man, we must surmise, whose charms and virtues were such that his wife, having felt the bliss and privilege of knowing and living with him, registered a vow over his bier that she would devote her future career to the attempt to make others as happy as he had made her; that she would serve others as faithfully and generously as she had served him. It was a lofty and beautiful ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... openings, pale, golden poplars shook down their dying leaves, and here and there along the ravine crimson maples gleamed against the background of dark green pines. In every direction bright-colored leaves, painted with "autumnal hectic," strewed the bier of the declining year. Beulah sat down on a tuft of moss, and gathered clusters of golden-rod and purple and white asters. She loved these wild wood-flowers much more than gaudy exotics or rare hothouse plants. They linked ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... suffered severely from its monotonous horrors. Monteiro and Gamitto (p. 232) give an illustration of what is known in the Cazembe's country as "Gomati:" The Mchua or gong-gong of Ashanti has a wooden handle connecting the cones. Our palhabote had brought up the chief Mashel's bier, and to-day we have the satisfaction of seeing it landed. A kind of palanquin, covered with crimson cloth and tinsel gold like a Bombay "Tabut," it had three horns or prominences, two capped with empty black bottles, and the central bearing the ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Come in consumption's ghastly form, The earthquake shock, the ocean-storm; Come when the heart beats high and warm, With banquet-song, and dance, and wine: And thou art terrible—the tear, The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier; And all we know, or dream, or fear ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... wonderful funeral passed through the streets of Dublin to Glasnevin, and those who saw the gathering that followed his coffin to the grave, the thousands of stalwart men that marched in solemn order behind his bier will never forget the sight. A silent slab unlettered and unmarked shows the spot where his remains were interred; no storied urn or animated bust, no marble column or commemorative tablet has been consecrated to his memory, but the ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... answer to the mournful tolling of the bell. The little by-way along which they went, the little green path leading over the hill, under trees shot through and through with the whiteness of summer seas, was strewn with blossoms fallen from the bier and the dolent fingers ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... a popular idol. On his death the mournful news was placarded all over Leipsic, where he had made his home, and there was an immense funeral procession. When the church service was over, a woman in deep mourning was led to the bier, and sinking down beside it, remained long in prayer. It was Cecile taking her last farewell ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... the "weeny baby" on her arm lay on a long carpenter's bench, her earthly journey over, and when Rebecca stole in and placed the flowery garland all along the edge of the rude bier, death suddenly took on a more gracious and benign aspect. It was only a child's sympathy and intuition that softened the rigors of the sad moment, but poor, wild Sal Winslow, in her frame of daisies, looked as if she were missed a little by an unfriendly world; while the weeny baby, whose ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... man's remains lay in state in the rotunda of the State Capitol, and the building was draped in mourning. Many came and looked upon the quiet face; but far more numerous than those who gathered at his bier to weep were those who assembled in secluded corners to speculate on the wearing of his toga. It ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... I come and lay the flowers of my Northern home upon the bier of this son of Virginia, this good citizen, this patriot, this man who, I am proud to believe, held even me in his affection. And when gentlemen here speak of the terror and the mystery of death, I tell them that to such a man death has no terrors, and that to ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... the flattering inscription on his tombstone. Forgotten Caesars, greater than any living monarch, had mixed their bones with the soil where these two sons of one father lay dead,—the bright moon was their sanctuary lamp,—the stars their funeral torches,—the width of the Campagna their bier, and the heavens their pall. And when the two terrified witnesses of the fatal fight realised the position, and saw that both combatants had truly perished, there were no regrets, no lamentations, no prayers, no thought of ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... hatred for his memory, in consequence, probably, of the cruelties and oppressions which they had suffered from him, that they would not allow his body to be honored with the ordinary funeral obsequies. They pulled it off from the bier on which it was to have been borne to the funeral pile, and dragged it ignominiously away. Pompey's father was accused, too, after his death, of having converted some public moneys which had been committed to his charge to his own ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... rise and set, but crosses stay, I leave thee ever,' saith she, 'light of cheer.' 'Tis so: yon sky still thinks upon the Day, And showers aerial blossoms on his bier. ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... no rhetoric, no affectation of fancy. Shelley saw the immortal shapes of "Desires and Adorations" lamenting over the bier of the mortal Keats, because for him an idea or a passion was incomparably more real and more comprehensible than the things of flesh and earth, of whose existence the senses persuade us. To such ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... lying in state at his house above the harbour where we landed, and we were invited to assist at the obsequies. His viscera were removed, and his remains, properly speaking, were laid on an elegant palanquin or hanging bier, highly perfumed; around which, and through the apartment, odorous oils were burning. Several of his old friends came to see him, and complimented him highly on the state of his looks and his good condition in various respects. They presented him with numerous and tasteful gifts, which they ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various
... John; no money!" One knot of women, of all ages, close by which my horse passed, was entirely occupied with a single topic, and that so vehemently that I heard the leading words of the discussion. "Mourning—becoming—what fashion?—how long?—O Ciel!" Thus do follies weave themselves round the bier of death! ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... lay down the bigly bier, Lat me the dead look on'; Wi' cherry cheeks and ruby lips She lay an' ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... every tribe. Among the Adelaide natives as soon as a person dies, a loud wailing cry is raised by the relations and friends. The body is immediately wrapped up in the skin or clothing worn during life, and in the course of a day or two, it is placed upon the wirkatti or bier, which is made of branches crossed so as to form the radii of a circle, an examination is then entered upon as to the cause of death, in the following manner. The bier is carried upon the shoulders of five or six persons, over places where the deceased ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... brief, though love be long The altar and the bier, The burial hymn and bridal song, Were both ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... washing they take cow-dung and spread it over the ground, and place the body on the top of this dung. They hold that a sick man who dies on a cot, or on anything so-ever except only on the ground, commits a mortal sin. As soon as the body is laid on the ground they make for it a bier covered with boughs of the fig-tree, and before they place the body on the bier they wash it well with pure water, and anoint it with sandal-wood (oil); and they place by the body branches of sweet basil and cover it with a new ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... looked after him a few moments in bewilderment, then laid the corpse upon two wheels, which they placed on poles, and bore him off on this improvised bier. This time the gardener lent ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... middle of the Greek churches and is covered with fervent kisses by the thronging crowd, while the whole church rings with melancholy, monotonous dirges. Late in the evening, when it has grown quite dark, this waxen image is carried by the priests into the street on a bier adorned with lemons, roses, jessamine, and other flowers, and there begins a grand procession of the multitude, who move in serried ranks, with slow and solemn step, through the whole town. Every man carries his taper ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... at the set of the sun, And enclos'd in a case, which the Silk-worm had spun; By the help of the Hornet, the coffin was laid, On a bier, out of ...
— The Butterfly's Funeral - A Sequel to the Butterfly's Ball and Grasshopper's Feast • J. L. B.
... who stood without, bearing a bier, and making so great cry and lamentation that men heard it far and near through the open doorways. So came they into the hall, a great company of folk, and cried with a loud voice to the lord of the castle, "Alas, master, here lieth dead the best ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... strains whose wandering echoes thrill The shepherd lingering on the twilight hill, When evening brings the merry folding hours, And sun-eyed daisies close their winking flowers. He lived o'er Yarrow's Flower to shed the tear, To strew the holly leaves o'er Harden's bier; But none was found above the minstrel's tomb, Emblem of peace, to bid the daisy bloom. He, nameless as the race from which he sprung, Saved other names, and ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... the 'bier, The form of the departed year Closely wrapt, in snowy shroud, Hastening to join the sable crowd Of years—that passed before the flood, And left their pathway stained with blood; For oh, what horrors must appear, Written on each departed year? The fearful tales each ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... proper for a world of sin, Like boys on whom the minister comes in. The table, fronting you with icy stare, Strove to look witless that its legs were bare, While the black sofa with its horse-hair pall Gloomed like a bier for Comfort's funeral. 300 Each piece appeared to do its chilly best To seem an utter stranger to the rest, As if acquaintanceship were deadly sin, Like Britons meeting in a foreign inn. Two portraits graced the wall in grimmest truth, Mister and Mistress W. in their ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... my bier? Is a gentleman to be kept waiting all night for his bier?" he exclaimed, ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... in the name of the Fair City, and of all the commons in Scotland, that he give us, after the fashion of our ancestors, the means of appealing to Heaven for light upon this dark murder, we will demand the proof by 'bier right,' often granted in the days of our sovereign's ancestors, approved of by bulls and decretals, and administered by the great Emperor Charlemagne in France, by King Arthur in Britain, and by Gregory the Great, and the mighty Achaius, in this our ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... the empty folds of the crimson robe that draped the bier, carrying it almost into the water, as the gondolas glided away from ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... leaned o'er Hamilton's rude bier And saw his dead dear face without a tear, Strong souls who early learned the manly art Of keeping from the eye what's in the heart, Soldiers who look unmoved on death's pale brow, Avert their eyes, to hide their moisture now. The briny flood forced back from shores of woe, Needs but to touch ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... in the tender heart Make a grave for the joys of the Past! Let never a tear fall hot on their bier, But hurry them in as fast As we bury the Beautiful out of our sight, Ere corruption and horror have ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... flatter American girls, don't they? Now you know you don't think my shoulders magnificent, do you? And my waist—O! Herr Arthmann, what shall I do with my waist? As Bruennhilde, I'm all right to move about in loose draperies, but as Fricka, as Gutrune—Gutrune who falls fainting beside Siegfried's bier! How must I look on my back? Oh, dear! and I diet, never drink water at meals, walk half the day and seldom touch a potato. And you know what that means in Germany! There are times when to see a potato, merely hearing the word mentioned, brings tears ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... Your hound hath broken bounds again, And chased my timorous deer, O; If him I see, That hour he'll dee; My brakes shall be his bier, O." ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare
... drove to his pleasure garden through the western gate, when he saw a dead body on the road, lying on a bier, and covered with a cloth. The friends stood about crying, sobbing, tearing their hair, covering their heads with dust, striking their breasts, and uttering wild cries. The prince, again calling his ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... himself into a shower of gold and rains into the lap of Danae. Piero Catanei, likewise, has a round picture in oils of a very beautiful Virgin by the hand of the same master. He also painted a most beautiful bier for the Confraternity of S. Lucia, and likewise another for that of S. Antonio; nor should anyone be astonished that I make mention of such works, for the reason that they are beautiful to a marvel, as all know who have ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... maundered the Secretary. "I kissed them once before she died, in Blois, when I was young. Rene was one of your slow poisoners. Smell a rose, draw on a pair of perfumed gloves, drink from a certain cup, and you rang your own knell, though your bier might not receive you for many and many a day,—not till the rose was dust, the gloves ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... me from the past—for the dream of life is dreamed, and may now be revealed; the dreamer is loitering on the Bier Path leading to the green grass mounds, whence mouldering hands seem to point upward and say, "Look thy last on the blue skies, and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... she thought to flee away at once, but again she had mind of her errand, and so went up the hall, and so forth on to the dais; and there again, close by the high table, she saw new tidings. For there was set a bier, covered with gold and pall, and on it was laid a tall man, a king, belted and crowned; and beside the said bier, by the head of the king, knelt a queen of exceeding goodly body, clad all in raiment of pearl and bawdekin; ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... and similar methods have long been employed in the treatment of inflammatory conditions, it is only within comparatively recent years that their mode of action has been properly understood, and to August Bier belongs the credit of having put the treatment of inflammation on a scientific and rational basis. Recognising the "beneficent intention" of the inflammatory reaction, and the protective action of the leucocytosis which accompanies the hyperaemic stages ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... their liquid echoes, till I lost myself in a deep sleep, which seemed to be pillowed on a sense of being carried on and on into a realm of silence, and then being lifted and carried, as on a living bier, with new senses waking clearer and clearer, as if naked in the delicate air of a new life, and at last waking and finding myself alone in an open space of forest, shadowed by trees of an unknown grace, and lighted by magic vistas ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... up a man to see to it, but he seemed unable to do much. I was glad when it was over. There was an odd incident, too, before the service. I went in rather early, and came upon two men carrying the parish bier back to its place under the tower. From what I overheard them saying, it appeared that it had been put out by mistake, by some one who was not there. I also saw the clerk busy folding up a moth-eaten velvet pall—not a sight ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... labor that the mother required. They arrayed her body for burial and bore it to the grave. If in that season of the year, autumn leaves hid the bier, and formed the covering and pillow of her narrow bed. If not in the fall, full-blown roses and ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... reeking form she loves; Whose noble mien—whose dignity of grace, Extort compassion from each gazing face? 'Tis Dudley's bride! like some fair opening flower Torn from its stem—she meets fate's direst hour; Still unappall'd she views that bloody bier, Takes her last sad farewell ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... year! The track behind thee is with glory crowned; The turf where thou hast trod is holy ground. Pass proudly to thy bier! ...
— Poems • Mary Baker Eddy
... you watch by night, In the dim twilight You may hear a requiem singing; And the people hear Above his bier A small bell clearly ringing. And if ye wait Until midnight late, You may hear the great bell toll: But none can tell Who tolls that bell If it sounds for Olaf's soul. With tapers clear, Which Christ holds dear, O'er the corpse so still reclining, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... breathed his very last breath, and left nothing at all for burial, but having passed down into Hades just as he was in life, flutters there the thinnest of the anatomies under earth; and his kinsfolk lifted an empty bier on their shoulders, inscribing above it, "This ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... rood. The assembly sat, their song uplifted; They mused in their minds on the mystery trees 870 Until the ninth hour when new delight grew Through a marvelous deed. —There a multitude came, Of folk not a little, and, lifted among them, There was borne on a bier by brave-hearted men Nigh to the spot —it was the ninth hour— 875 A lifeless youth. Then was lifted the heart Of Judas in great rejoicing and gladness. He commanded them to set the soulless man, With life cut off, the corpse on the earth, Bereft of life, and there was raised aloft ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... to die, so far he failed of trial, and making his defense. 18. And when he was carried out the prison-house dead, although we had three houses, they permitted him to be carried out from neither of them; but, having hired a bier, they laid him out. And, although there was much clothing, they gave none to us, when we asked it for his burial, but of his friends, one gave a garment, another a pillow, and what each one happened to have, he gave for his burial. 19. And although ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... is now gone down to Cairo, but I doubt whether he will reach it alive. The Englishman was buried on the first day of Ramadan where they bury strangers, on the site of a former Coptic church. Archdeacon Moore read the service; Omar and I spread my old flag over the bier, and Copts and Muslims helped to carry the poor stranger. It was a most impressive sight. The party of Europeans, all strangers to the dead but all deeply moved; the group of black-robed and turbaned Copts; the sailors ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... forest, with perhaps a great column of evil-smelling smoke drifting in oily waves over the corner of the wall, telling of the sad rites that were going on within. I could fancy heavy-eyed mourners dragging a bier up to the gates, with a silent form lying upon it, waiting in pale dismay until the great doors were flung open by the sombre rough attendants of the place; until they could see the ugly enclosure, with the wood piled ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... twilight spaces; and craned our necks to breaking in trying to pierce the gathered gloom in the vaulting overhead. It was a precious moment, but perhaps too weird, and we were glad to find a sacristan with businesslike activity setting red candlesticks about a bier in the area before the choir, which here, as in the other Spanish cathedrals, is planted frankly in the middle of the edifice, a church by itself, as if to emphasize the incomparable grandeur of the cathedral. The sacristan willingly paused in his task and explained ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... Paul Verdayne, kneeling by the bier, with its trappings of a kingdom's mourning, which hid beneath its rich adornment all the joy that life for twenty years had held for him, felt for the first time a sense of guilt, as he ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... some water to wash the body, and at the same time Ali Baba perfumed it with incense, and wrapped it in the burying clothes with the accustomed ceremonies. Not long after the proper officer brought the bier, and when the attendants of the mosque, whose business it was to wash the dead, offered to perform their duty, she told them it was done already. Shortly after this the imaun and the other ministers of the mosque arrived. Four neighbors carried the corpse to the burying-ground, following the imaun, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... shattered on the rock of implacable Fate. But the transcendent beauty of the modern drama is lent by the ethical idea of salvation through the love of pure woman—a salvation touching which no one can be in doubt when Tannhauser sinks lifeless beside the bier of the atoning saint, and Venus's cries of woe are swallowed up by the pious canticle ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... fain would know What motive placed thee here, Where darkly opes the frequent grave, And rests the frequent bier. Ah! bootless creeps the dusky shade, Slow o'er thy figured plain: When mortal life has passed away, Time counts ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... Bitterly the infant had wailed, but when they crossed the threshold of the chapel, it ceased, and a smile broke over its face—a smile pure and saintly, such as little children wear, lying in a sleep so beautiful that the bier seems like ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... this event of all its terrors. The decease of every individual is announced to the community by solemn music from a band of instruments. Outward appearances of mourning are discountenanced. The whole congregation follows the bier to the graveyard, (which is commonly laid out as a garden,) accompanied by a band, playing the tunes of well-known verses, which express the hopes of eternal life and resurrection; and the corpse is deposited in the simple ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... by most modern pianists who haven't brains enough to parse a sentence or play a Bach Invention. The Weimar crew all imitated Liszt's style in octaves and hair dressing. I was there once, a sunny day in May, the hedges white with flowers and the air full of bock-bier. Ah, thronging memories of youth! I was slowly walking through a sun-smitten lane when a man on horse dashed by me, his face red with excitement, his beast covered with lather. He kept shouting "Make room for the ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... call,— Karl will come to avenge our fall, Nor hence the foemen in joyance wend. The Franks will all from their steeds descend; When they find us slain and martyred here, They will raise our bodies on mule and bier, And, while in pity aloud they weep, Lay us in hallowed earth to sleep; Nor wolf nor boar on our limbs shall feed." Said Roland, "Yea, 'tis a ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... empty. Edmee's embroidery frame, buried under the green cloth, which her hand, perchance, would never lift again, seemed to me like a bier under its pall. My uncle's big arm-chair was no longer in the chimney-corner. My portrait, which I had had painted in Philadelphia and had sent over during the American war, had been taken down from the wall. These were signs of ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... he sit sadly by the sick man's bed, To raise the hope he feels not, or with zeal To combat fears that e'en the pious, feel? Now once again the gloomy scene explore, Less gloomy now; the bitter hour is o'er, The man of many sorrows sighs no more. - Up yonder hill, behold how sadly slow The bier moves winding from the vale below: There lie the happy dead, from trouble free, And the glad parish pays the frugal fee: No more, O Death! thy victim starts to hear Churchwarden stern, or kingly overseer; No more the farmer claims his humble bow, Thou art his ...
— The Village and The Newspaper • George Crabbe
... o'er the ragged bier, The soldier drops the mournful tear, For life departed, valour driven, Fresh from the field of ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... the time When YOUTH kept open house, Nor left untasted Aught of his high emprise and ventures dear, No quest of his unshar'd — All these, with loitering feet and sad head bar'd, Followed their old friend's bier. FOLLY went first, With muffled bells and coxcomb still revers'd; And after trod the bearers, hat in hand — LAUGHTER, most hoarse, and Captain PRIDE with tanned And martial face all grim, and fussy JOY, Who had to catch a train, and LUST, poor, snivelling boy; These bore the dear departed. ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... thirteenth chair was filled, the mask at the head leaned forward and pointed silently to a dark object at the far end of the room about which the candles flickered and sparkled. It was a huge Black Cross suspended as above an altar. Below it lay an open bier, roughly hewn out of the stone, and across it a name in scarlet lettering. The ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... revenge, and blood had atoned for the blood of the monarch; but now affection assumed its rights, and tears of grief must flow for the man. The universal sorrow absorbs all individual woes. The generals, still stupefied by the unexpected blow, stood speechless and motionless around his bier, and no one trusted himself enough to contemplate the full ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... dropped it into the swiftly flowing Isar. The clear jade green of the lovely river reflected the points of the stars, and Franz von Nettelbeck as he drifted down the tide looked as if attended by innumerable candles dropped graciously from on high to watch at his bier. But it was to Heloise this fancy came, and she lifted her face and thanked the stars for their silent funeral march. Not for her would the supreme sacrifice have been possible, and for the moment she did not ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... Xanthias begs the dead man to take the pack with him as he is borne so comfortably on the same road to the nether world. Whereupon they dicker over the portage. "Two shillings for the job," says the corpse, sitting up on his bier. "Too much," says Xanthias. "Two shillings," insists the corpse. "One and sixpence," cries Xanthias. "I'd see myself alive first!" says the corpse, ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... looked for you everywhere at the Botanic Gardens, and finding you were too wise to come, came here, grieving your absence, and had an aesthetic "Bier." [(Dr. William Francis, one of the editors of the "Philosophical Magazine," and a member of the publishing firm ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... instruments for incense and wax. Ring out the signals of My Church for a solemn assembly; raise high your hymnal voices, open the doors of My house and its inner shrines: place near to the altar, which holds the Body of My Son, what is left of that brother or sister; finally, cover him a bier with costly palls, for at last he triumphs: crowd it with lamps and candles, circle round him, overthrown as he is, with helping crowds of servants. Do more. Repeat the votive offering of My Son. Make the richest feast, and thus the panting ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... might have been master of the household with both parties, since he himself had mated them. And here is another, who went, last Twelfth Night, to visit two Welsh lasses who were turning their shifts, and instead of enticing them to wantonness in the form of a fair youth, to one he took a bier, to make her thoughts more serious; to the other, he went with the tumult of war in a hellish whirlwind, to make her madder than before; and this was quite needless. Nor was this all; for after he had entered the maiden, and ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... an earnest prayer. After the singing of the song, "Jesus, Lover of my Soul," came the final leave-taking, and the departure from the church to the grave. Not the least touching of these scenes was the breaking down in grief of the sturdy yeomen of the congregation as they stood around the bier of their dear brother and former pastor, and looked on that manly face and form for the ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... little party of four making its way home, cleansed and hungry, united and happy, stood for a moment on a tree-planted island half-way across a wide open space, Minna with her eager smile said, gazing, "Oh, I would like a glass Bier." Miriam saw very distinctly the clear sunlight on the boles of the trees showing every ridge and shade of colour as it had done on the peaked summer-house porch in the morning. The girls closed in on her during the moment of disgust which ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... parallel to each other under it. These were borne by four men, one at the end of each, with the point of it crossing his body a little below his stomach; in other parts of Ireland, the coffin is borne upon a bier on the shoulders, but this is more convenient and ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... Yet e'en on this her load misfortune flings, To press the weary minutes' flagging wings; New sorrow rises as the day returns, A sister sickens, or a daughter mourns. Now kindred merit fills the sable bier, Now lacerated friendship claims a tear; Year chases year, decay pursues decay, Still drops some joy from with'ring life away; New forms arise, and diff'rent views engage, Superfluous lags the vet'ran on the stage, Till pitying nature signs the last release, And bids afflicted worth retire ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... broke, And crowded cities wail its stroke; Come in consumption's ghastly form, The earthquake shock, the ocean storm; Come when the heart beats high and warm, With banquet song, and dance, and wine; And thou art terrible,—the tear, The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier, And all we know, or dream, or fear Of agony are thine. 493 ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... room hung with black: on one side Lothario's body on a bier; on the other a table, with a skull and other bones, a book, and a lamp on it. Calista is discovered on a couch, in black, her hair hanging loose and disordered. After soft music, she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... gently, but firmly; "I must exact this much of you. If we are to go on together, as we have planned, you must stand beside me at his bier. Together we must look upon him for the last time. You must see him as I saw him up there in the country. I had my cruel blow that night. It is your turn now. I will not blame you for what you did. But if you expect me to go on believing that you did ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... through the windows of the nave, while the choir was in half gloom, and as each shaft of light illuminated the flower-covered bier as it slowly travelled on, one thought of the bright succession of his works between the darkness before and the darkness after. I am glad to say that the Royal Society was represented by four of its chief officers, and nine of the commonalty, including myself. Tennyson ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... my husband's friends Who spoke in terms of polished elegance. With formal platitudes and commonplace Regarding me as something curious, A vulgar, noisy creature, lacking taste And proper self-control. While on its bier Lay all the joy that life in promise held. Dead, and my heart within it. (Weeps) (Shylock turns to go, looks back after a step or ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... I came through the desert: From the right A shape came slowly with a ruddy light; A woman with a red lamp in her hand, Bareheaded and barefooted on that strand; 65 O desolation moving with such grace! O anguish with such beauty in thy face! I fell as on my bier, Hope ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson
... He will receive special requests not to harrow up the feelings he only meant to bind up in balm. He may be informed of an aversion, more or less extensive, to naming the grave or coffin and what it contains, though he only puts one foot by pall or bier to plant the other in paradise. If he turn the everlasting verities he is intrusted with to events transpiring on the public stage, though he never sided with any party in his life, and has no more committed himself to men than did his Master, some will be grieved at his preaching politics. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... high hall Sat Brunswick's fated chieftain; he did hear That sound the first amidst the festival, And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear; And when they smiled because he deemed it near, His heart more truly knew that peal too well Which stretched his father on a bloody bier, And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell; He rushed into the field, and, ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... Boy! forever lov'd, for ever dear, What fruitless tears have wash'd thy honour'd bier; What sighs re-echoed to thy parting breath, Whilst thou wert struggling in the pangs of death. Could tears have turn'd the tyrant in his course, Could sighs have check'd his dart's relentless force; Could youth ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... night after the death the nearest relation of the deceased sleeps with his head on the corpse, hoping thus to dream of the sorcerer who has done the mischief. Next day the corpse is placed on a sort of bier supported on men's shoulders. The friends of the deceased gather round and call out the names of suspected persons to see whether the corpse will give any sign. At last the next of kin calls out the name of the person of whom he has dreamed, and if at the sound the ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... of her transient finery, and clothed in the conventual garb; the bridal chaplet taken from her brow, and her beautiful head shorn of its long silken tresses. I heard her murmur the irrevocable vow. I saw her extended on a bier; the death-pall spread over her; the funeral service performed that proclaimed her dead to the world; her sighs were drowned in the deep tones of the organ, and the plaintive requiem of the nuns; the father looked on, unmoved, without a tear; the lover—no my imagination ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... not high honor,— The hillside for a pall, To lie in state while angels wait With stars for tapers tall, And the dark rock-pines like tossing plumes, Over his bier to wave, And God's own hand, in that lonely land, To lay him in ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever! Let the bell toll!—a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river. And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?—weep now or never more! See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore! Come! let the burial rite be read—the funeral song be sung!— An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young— A dirge for her, the doubly dead in that she ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... dynasty of emperors. There, leaning on their swords, the three gazed down on him, armored, armed, majestic, serious, guarding the empty grave, which to the child, who knew nothing of its history, seemed a bier; and at the feet of Theodoric, who alone of them all looked young and merciful, poor little desperate Findelkind fell with a piteous sob, and cried: "I am not mad! Indeed, ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... At the bier Augustus Thomas delivered an eloquent address that fittingly summed up the life and purpose of the greatest force that the English-speaking theater has yet known. ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... soldier's bier Who dies that his land may live; O, banners, banners here, That he doubt not nor misgive! That he heed not from the tomb The evil days draw near When the nation, robed in gloom, With its faithless past shall ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... still, untrodden solitudes Its lovely days are passed; And the sunny turf is its fragrant bier When ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... there's a sounding-board; and what in all things makes the sounding-board is this —there's naught beneath. And yet, a coffin with a body in it rings pretty much the same, Carpenter. Hast thou ever helped carry a bier, and heard the coffin knock against the churchyard gate, going in? Faith, sir, I've— Faith? What's that? Why, faith, sir, it's only a sort of exclamation-like —that's all, sir. Um, um; go on. I was about to say, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville |
