"Bier" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... issue of the "Daily News." The body, anointed so as to preserve it till the third day, and dressed in the toga—which will be that of the highest position he ever occupied—is laid in state in the high reception-hall, with the feet pointing to the door. On the bier are wreaths, by it is burning a pan of incense, in or before the vestibule is placed a cypress tree or a number of cypress branches for warning ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... room or men and women of every faith and every race. The advertisements which glitter in the windows or are plastered upon the hoardings suggest that all nationalities meet with an equal and a flattering acceptance. The German regrets his fatherland the less when he finds a brilliant Bier-Halle waiting for his delight. The Scot no doubt finds the "domestic" cigar sweeter to his taste if a portrait of Robert Burns adorns the box from which he takes it. The Jew may be supposed to lose the sense of homesickness when he can read the news of ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... with 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 ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Bartoline Saddle-tree and his prudent helpmate, and Porteous swinging in the wind, and Madge Wildfire, full of finery and madness, and her ghastly mother.—Again, there is Meg Merrilies, standing on her rock, stretched on her bier with "her head to the east," and Dirk Hatterick (equal to Shakespear's Master Barnardine), and Glossin, the soul of an attorney, and Dandy Dinmont, with his terrier-pack and his pony Dumple, and the fiery Colonel ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... friends, that they might be waked. By the direction of McElvina the wounded English were carried up by their former antagonists to the small town at the foot of the castle, where surgical assistance was to be obtained. Seymour was placed on a sort of bier that had been constructed for him, Emily and her companions riding by his side; and the cavalcade wound up the hill, the rear brought up by Mr Hardsett and the remainder of the English crew. In two hours all were at their respective destinations; and Seymour, who had been examined by ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the little dead boy were her own; behind her the other schoolmistresses; and behind the mistresses, the boys, among whom were some very little ones, who carried bunches of violets in one hand, and who stared in amazement at the bier, while their other hand was held by their mothers, who carried candles. I heard one of them say, "And shall I not see ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... of police penetrated into that other darkness which was beyond the gate; then the bier; then the man with the spade; then the chaplain with his torch and his book, and ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... and perils he had gone through to satisfy himself; then she said to him, "Hasten away, my son! for if my three daughters meet you I would not give a farthing for your life; half-alive and half-roasted, a frying-pan would be your bier and a belly your grave. But away with you as fast as a hare, and you will not go far before you find what ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... he did not heed or hear him—dark and stern thoughts, thoughts in which were the germ of a mighty revolution, were at his heart. He woke from them with a start, as the soldiers were now arranging their bucklers so as to make a kind of bier for the corpse, and then burst into tears as he fiercely motioned them away, and clasped the clay to his breast till he was literally soaked ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... 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 Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... length they thought of those poor hearts at home, Mother and sister, watching through the night— Waiting and watching through the livelong day, Startled at every step, at every sound, Startled at every bier that came in view In that great city of the stranger dead, That city where the living come to die— And home returned when evening's rose and gold Had faded from the sky, and myriad lamps Danced on the sacred stream, and moon and stars Hung quivering in its dark and silent depths. But ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... of her youth, and for a beauteousness which in death, it may be, showed the more resplendently than in life, did breed in the heart the smarting of great desire. Therefore she was carried uncovered on the bier from her dwelling to the place of burial, and moved all men, thronging there to see her, to abundant shedding of tears. And in some, who before had not been aware of her, after pity grew great marvel for that she, in death, had overcome ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... was done, the doctor, the old woman and William standing around the little bier, and William saying the holy words himself. And there, high up on the mountain under the very eave of Heaven, swinging deep in his brown cradle of earth, the mother angels will find him, the little itinerant, with his dust properly baptized, when they come on the last day to awaken and ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... eyes are bound—the prayer is said— He kneels upon his bier; So dread a silence sank on all, You might have heard a tear Drop to the earth. My heart beat quick With happiness ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... spirit of Mr. Hamlin, slightly assisted by circumstances, passed beyond these voices at the Ranch of the Blessed Fisherman, some two years later. As the editor stood beside the body of his friend on the morning of the funeral, he noticed among the flowers laid upon his bier by loving hands a wreath of white violets. Touched and disturbed by a memory long since forgotten, he was further embarrassed, as the cortege dispersed in the Mission graveyard, by the apparition of the tall figure of Mr. James Bowers from behind a monumental ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... the four were buried in solemn state, at the church of the village of Navaretta, Sir Eustace following his brother's bier, at the head of all ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... himself little, trivial, beside this forlorn bier. What did he know about love? He had never made any sacrifices; he had simply carried in his heart a bittersweet recollection. But here! Twenty-odd years of unremitting devotion to the son of the woman he had loved—Stefani Gregor. Creating environments that would develop the noble ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... little grove of Casuarinas behind my house. Among the traders was a. Mahometan priest, who superintended the funerals, which were very simple. The body was wrapped up in new white cotton cloth, and was carried on a bier to the grave. All the spectators sat down on the ground, and the priest chanted some verses from the Koran. The graves were fenced round with a slight bamboo railing, and a little carved wooden head-post ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... roared like a lion; he flourished a naked sword in each hand; he was in armour, with a pair of pistols in his girdle, and kept muttering something to himself like an inebriated maniac; two slaves followed him, clothed in woollen, and bearing on their heads a bier ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... gushed from a thousand veins. Then thine, O Brown, that purpled wide the ground, Pursued the knife through many a ghastly wound. Ah! hapless friend, permit the tender tear To flow e'en now, for none flowed on thy bier, Where cold and mangled, under northern skies, To famished wolves a prey, thy body lies, Which erst so fair and tall in youthful grace, Strength in thy nerves and beauty in thy face, Stood like a tower till, struck by the swift ball, Then what availed to ward th' untimely fall, The force ...
— Colonel John Brown, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the Brave Accuser of Benedict Arnold • Archibald Murray Howe
... sleeplessness; he could not close his eyes. And the thought troubled him as to what Dodi was doing. He sent Noemi out often to see if he wanted anything. And whenever she did so she kissed the little dead child on the bier, and spoke caressing words for Michael to hear: "My little Dodi! my darling sweet, asleep again! Tell mother you love her;" and then she came back to say ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... he overstand the charge, the accusation, the sentence, and condemnation? No, he has none to plead his cause. I remember that somewhere I have read, as I think, concerning one who, when he was being carried upon men's shoulders to the grave, cried out as he lay upon the bier, I am accused before the just judgment of God; and a while after, I am condemned before the just judgment of God. Nor was this man but strict as the religion that was then on foot in the world; but all the religion of the world amounts to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the rule that made the horse-tail bare,[146] I pluck out year by year, as hair by hair, And melt down ancients like a heap of snow: While you, to measure merits, look in Stowe, And estimating authors by the year, Bestow a garland only on a bier. ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... crowned; the eulogy of the first was pronounced by Matteo Palmieri, of the latter by Giannozzo Manetti, before the members of the council and the whole people, the orator standing at the head of the bier, on which the corpse lay clad in a silken robe. Carlo Aretino was further honoured by a tomb in Santa Croce, which is among the most beautiful in the whole course of the ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... disciples of Christ, they desire to divest 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 ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... upon the bier, Dashed from his eye the gathering tear, Then, like the high bred colt when freed First he essays his fire ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... While conscience, with his vengeance sure, Shall grant no peace, and feel no cure. Aye, weep! for thee, no pitying eye Shall shed the sympathizing tear; Hopeless and childless shalt thou die, And none shall mourn above thy bier. Thy race extinct; no more thy name Shall proudly ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... say why this man has been brought," said the Hakim slowly, and as he looked down he saw the occupant of the bier start and tremble; but did not ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... verwassert aber keineswegs abstossend schlecht schmeckt, ist den Bube gewohnlich nur eine Delikatesse welche mit Andacht schluckweise genossen wird. Wenn ein Arbeiter bei uns einen Schluck Branntwein oder ein Glas Bier geniesst um sich zu starken, so findet das Jeder in der Ordnung; der Bube jedoch, welcher splitternackt tagelang in feuchten Bergwaldern umher klettern muss, soll beliebe nichts als Wasser trinken!" Eine Africanische Tropen. insel Fernando ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... an' her brothers dear Gard make to her a bier; The tae half was o' guid red gold, The ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... lived with my lady's father, I was the old gentleman's huntsman, and that dear child was ever at my heels. The Lord be praised! the Lord be praised! but I little thought the blue waves would be his bier before he had seen his twentieth year. They are all gone, sir: five such boys!—the girl, the lamb of the flock, only left. You do not know her, do ye?" inquired the old man, peering with much curiosity into the Skipper's face, as ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... of that gloomy Salon of Peace, converted into a catafalque; the sight of that small bier, on which a beautiful, good, and indulgent wife was reposing; those silent images, so full of speech, awoke the just remorse of the King. His tears began once more to flow abundantly, and he was ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... more, noblest of all Britons, Arthur caused to be sought all the powerful men, kings and earls, and the richest barons, who in the fight were slain, and deprived of life-day; he caused them to be buried with great pomp. But he caused three kings to bear Luces the emperor, and caused a bier to be made, rich and exceeding lofty; and caused them soon to be sent to Rome. And greeted all the Rome-people with a great taunt, and said that he sent them the tribute of his land, and eft would also send them more greeting, if they ...
— Brut • Layamon
... liquid air were spread between them and the darkness. There was a break in the night outside, a livid streak of dawn; the objects in the room took curious unintelligible shapes, the billiard-table in its white cloth became a monstrous bed, a bier, a gleaming mausoleum. And with the dawn Tyson on his sofa had dropped into a doze, and thence into a sleep. The night's orgy of emotion had left his features in a curious moral disarray; once or twice a sort of bubbling murmur rose to his lips. "Poor devil!" thought Stanistreet, "I'd ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... 168.) that the bier should be so set down in the middle of the church that in every case the injunction previously given should be complied with, even from the commencement of the funeral service; and, in fact, the manner of adhering to the established practice of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various
... goes up to 200 per cent. above par. Big crowds rush to hear the guzzlin divine extort. And, sir! before you know it, that preacher is richer'n mud, and just as likely as not, owns stock in a race-course or a lager-bier brewery. Thus, as ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... territory. Get my chariot for me that I may go in haste to see his corpse, so that Patrick may come to hear of the worry and the grief I have undergone because of his disciple's death." The body had been recovered before the arrival of Declan by others who were close at hand and it had been placed on a bier to be carried to Ciaran for interment. Declan however met them on the way, when he ordered the body to be laid down on the ground. They supposed he was about to recite the Office for the Dead. He (Declan) advanced to the place where ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... divided, some turning into Brunswick, while others rode toward Hillton. Dan Wright did not die in the street, however. Torn and riddled as his body was, he lingered a few days in agony in the city hospital before death released him. "And the king followed the bier; and the king lifted up his voice and wept; and the king said, 'Died ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... When Abner, the most influential man of his opponents, offered to submit to him, David received him with kindness and made him a friend. And when Abner was treacherously killed by Joab, David publicly mourned for him, following the bier, and weeping at the grave. The historian says concerning this: "And all the people took notice of it and it pleased them: as whatsoever the king did pleased all the people. For all the people understood that day that it was not of the king to slay ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... Rooms o'erflow with firelight warm, 40 Which, outside the window-glass, Doubled all the cold, alas! Till each ray that on her fell Stabbed her like an icicle, And she almost loved the wail Of the bloodhounds on her trail. Till the floor becomes her bier, She shall feel their pantings near, Close upon her very heels, Spite of all the din of wheels; 50 Shivering on her pallet poor, She shall hear them at the door Whine and scratch to be let in, Sister bloodhounds, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... the puddle, which was as plain as a golden guinea on a platter. I do not see how I could have blundered into it, for the daylight was still clear and strong. I had been gazing like a fool in the direction of Bath. And my Celtic melancholy swept down upon me again, and even my father's bier appeared before me with the pale candle-flames swaying in the gusty room, and now indeed my ears heard the loud wailing keen of ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... Life which has been given to us as a specimen of life for all, was a social, a human Life. Christ did not refuse to mix with the common joys and common sorrows of Humanity. He was present at the marriage-feast, and by the bier of the widow's son. This of the two lives was the one which, because it was the most human, was the most divine; the most rare, the most difficult, the most ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... washed clean away. Even so they made trial of the ford, 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 against the ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... on that which Frea said should be. But night came down, and darken'd Asgard streets Then from their loathed feasts the Gods arose, And lighted torches, and took up the corpse Of Balder from the floor of Odin's hall, And laid it on a bier, and bare him home Through the fast-darkening streets to his own house, Breidablik, on whose columns Balder graved The enchantments that recall the dead to life. For wise he was, and many curious arts, Postures of ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... yellow, and sky-blue silk ribbons. Loose leaves and branches were scattered over the little emaciated body, care being taken not to conceal any of the fancy silk ribbons. Empty whiskey and gin bottles were placed around the bier, a candle stuck in the mouth of each bottle, and then the whole ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... Mississippi. When General Lee's body lay in state at Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) her grandson, Samuel McCutcheon Lawrason, then a student at Virginia Military Institute, was one of the bodyguards at the bier. ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... since first I fell from heaven, Have chewed this tough meat many a thousand year, No man digests the ancient leaven, No mortal, from the cradle to the bier. Trust one of us—the whole creation To God alone belongs by right; He has in endless day his habitation, Us He hath made for utter night, You ...
— Faust • Goethe
... pictured to myself the scene passing within: the poor novice despoiled 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 refused ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... was 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 ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... corpse the candles shine around his narrow bier, Escorted by the crowds of poor with many a bitter tear; No more, alas! can he the sad and anguished-laden cure— Oh, wail! For Durand is no more—the Doctor of ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... compact little swarm of the Pleiades. All northern nations recognize the seven bright stars of the Great Bear, and they are known by a score of familiar names. They are the "Plough," or "Charles's Wain" of Northern Europe; the "Seven Plough Oxen" of ancient Rome; the "Bier and Mourners" of the Arabs; the "Chariot," or "Waggon," of the old Chaldeans; the "Big Dipper" of the prosaic New England farmer. These three groups are just the three which we find mentioned in the earliest poetry of Greece. So Homer writes, ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... had warmed some water to wash the body, Ali Baba came with incense to embalm it, after which it was sewn up in a winding sheet. Not long after, the joiner, according to Ali Baba's orders, brought the bier, which Morgiana received at the door, and helped Ali Baba to put the body into it; when she went to the mosque to inform the imaum that they were ready. The people of the mosque, whose business it was to wash the dead, offered to perform their duty, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... body is already in the grave. He has before said, 'Lay her i'th' earth': then it was not in the grave. It is just about to be lowered, when, with that cry of 'Hold off the earth a while,' he jumps into the grave, and taking the corpse, on a bier at the side of it, in his arms, calls to the spectators to pile a mountain on them—in the wild speech that brings out Hamlet. The quiet dignity of Hamlet's speech does not comport with his jumping into the grave: Laertes comes ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... till they were hoarse, "Un soldo l'uno, due soldi tre!" big bronze bells were booming till they seemed to clang right up to the deep-blue sky; some brethren of the Misericordia went by bearing a black bier; a large sheaf of glowing flowers—dahlias, zinnias, asters, and daturas—was borne through the huge arched door of the church near St. Mark and his open book. Lolo looked on at it all, and so did Moufflou, and a stranger looked at them as he left ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Eliduc conceived the idea of taking Guillardun, whom he regarded as dead, to a certain chapel in a great forest quite near his own home. Setting her body before him on his palfrey, he soon came to the little shrine, and making a bier of the altar laid Guillardun upon it. He then betook him to his own house, but the next morning returned to the chapel in the forest. Mourning over the body of his lady-love, he was surprised to observe that the colour still remained ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... the day after to-morrow! and so it is that some of the family will go. Fancy, Pereo, a Guitierrez at the funeral of the Americano Doctor! Nay, I doubt not that the Dona Maria will ask thee to say a prayer over his bier." ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... father, and thought it was my intention to go with him to his graveside, he feared that his troops might be adversely affected by the sight of a young officer, scarcely more than a boy, following, in tears, his father's bier. So he came the next day before dawn to the room where my father lay, and taking me by the hand, he led me under some pretext or other to a distant room, while, on his orders, twelve Grenadiers, accompanied only by one officer and Col. Sacleux, took the body in silence, ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... portrait of the said Francesco di Marco, the creator and founder of that holy place. In the Pieve of the said township, on a little panel over the side-door as one ascends the steps, he painted the Death of S. Bernard, by the touch of whose bier many cripples are being restored to health. In this picture are friars bewailing the death of their master, and it is a marvellous thing to see the beautiful expression of the sadness of lamentation in the heads, counterfeited with great art and resemblance to nature. Here there are draperies in ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari
... wish to live, but not in slavish fear; In peacefulness we dare not die, dishonored on our bier. To our allies of the Northern land we offer heart and hand, But if they scorn our friendship—then ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... wish she had obviously selected a situation in which wishes of that sort are commonly suppressed—a situation which is so filled with sorrow that love is not thought of. And yet, it is very easily probable that even in the actual situation at the bier of the second, more dearly loved boy, which the dream copied faithfully, she had not been able to suppress her feelings of affection for the visitor whom she had missed for so long ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... the same date as that in the north aisle, and is also the work of Peter, Prior from 1195 to 1225. In the western bay is the original Norman window, the others being filled with modern tracery of Decorated style. In this aisle is a large aumbry and recess, where the bier and lights used at funerals were stored. There is also a holy-water stoup in the third bay. At the west end are the remains of the stairway which led to the dormitory. The stairway is built into the wall, which, at this particular spot, is nearly ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath
... bent their efforts to displacing the monolith. Wooden wedges were carefully driven in, and presently the huge stone was moved and slid down the props prepared to receive it. The sarcophagus having been opened, showed the first bier hermetically sealed. It was a coffer adorned with paintings and gilding, representing a sort of shrine with symmetrical designs, lozenges, quadrilles, palm leaves, and lines of hieroglyphs. The cover was opened, and Rumphius, who was bending over the sarcophagus, uttered ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... sons passed them by, usually on the opposite sidewalk, but not one of them had the hardihood to extend a helping hand to the expiring saloon. At the end of a week, the Sunlight Bar drew its last breath. It died of starvation. The only mourner at its bier was the bewildered saloon-keeper, who engaged a dray to haul the remains to Boggs City, the County seat, and it was he who said, as far back as 1870, that he was in favour of taking the vote away from the men and giving ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... months after the death, in order to make the ceremony more magnificent. But now, in the twilight of the second evening, which was Monday, a quiet procession came silently across from the Manor House to the church, headed by Father Jordan; twelve poor men bore torches beside the bier; the Mass for the Dead was softly sung, and those beautiful, pathetic words which for ages rose beside the ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... I change not. I look not at you, vain man, and your frail transitory concerns, save in momentary glimpses: I look on the white face of my dead mistress, whom I follow as the bridegroom follows the bier of her who has changed her nuptial raiment ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the indifferent lips of clarions, now 'neath the breath of Antony and now of Caesar, but rather out of the single hearts of men who love me. Yet—and now I will speak low, as we do speak o'er the bier of some beloved dead—yet, if Fortune should rise against me and if, borne down by the weight of arms, Antony, the soldier, dies a soldier's death, leaving you to mourn him who ever was your friend, this is my will, that, after ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... one less dear Than the dearest of all the dead; I weep—but, Father, my bitter tear Falleth not down o'er a single bier— I mourn not the joys of the lost last year, But the rivers ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... and gave notice to an Imam[FN299] that a funeral was awaiting the mourners in a certain household, and prayed that he would come to read the prayers for the dead; and the Imam went back with her. Then four neighbours took up the bier[FN300] and bore it on their shoulders and fared forth with the Imam and others who were wont to give assistance at such obsequies. After the funeral prayers were ended four other men carried off the coffin; and Morgiana walked before it bare of head, striking her breast ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... long procession of people coming out to his ship. All the women of Marstrand were there, both young and old. They all wore mourning weeds, and they brought with them a group of boys who carried a bier. ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof
... sprinkle the spot with cow-dung where thy corpse shall lie, and to spread the unspotted cloth; nor any cow, her horns tipped with rings of brass, and her neck garlanded with flowers, to lead thee, holding by her tail, through pleasant paths to the land of Yama! May no Purohita come to strew thy bier with the holy herb, nor any next of kin be near to whisper the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... rattling down-hill, into Naples. A funeral is coming up the street, toward us. The body, on an open bier, borne on a kind of palanquin, covered with a gay cloth of crimson and gold. The mourners, in white gowns and masks. If there be death abroad, life is well represented too, for all Naples would seem to be out of doors, and tearing to and fro in carriages. Some of these, the common Vetturino ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... loved him, what have we to lay For sign of worship on his warrior-bier? What homage, could his lips but speak to-day, Would he have held ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... that memorable night, he had knocked and received no answer—and passed through it treading softly as though he were visiting a death chamber. And indeed, to him, it was truly a death chamber in which the bed, all covered over with a white sheet, might have been a bier, and the pillows put lengthwise down it, the shrouded form of one dearly loved and lost. He gazed about, staring at the familiar pieces of furniture, out of wide red eyes, smarting with unshed tears. In her looking glass, he seemed to see the ghost-reflection of her small ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... place by torch light. The corpse was carried with the feet foremost on an open bier covered with the richest cloth, and borne by the nearest relatives and friends. It was preceded by the image of the deceased, together with those of ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... go into the room where Lucy lay. The sight touched me. Devotion is so rare, and we are so grateful to those who show it unasked to those we love. Here was a poor girl putting aside the terrors which she naturally had of death to go watch alone by the bier of the mistress whom she loved, so that the poor clay might not be lonely till ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... in his arms, but she pushed him away as if she feared to commit some breach of faith, and turning hastily to the bier she said softly: ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... The weiss bier of Berlin, served in wide goblets, is rather going out of fashion. It often is drunk mixed ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... character which is Shakespearean, and this regardless of the question so often raised, and so incapable of reply, as to whether some of the wilder ones are Shakespeare's composition or no. Whoever originally may have written such scraps as "They bore him bare-faced on the bier" and "Come o'er the bourne, Bessy, to me," the spirit of Shakespeare now pervades and ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... period of the summer season, it is natural that the civic mind should turn itself to the contemplation of sweet rural things, including shady groves, lunch-baskets, wild flowers, sandwiches, bird songs, and bottled lager-bier. ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... ever thought of proffering his services, or even indulging curiosity, by way of inquiry. "How thoroughly German," thought I; "these people are the Turks of Europe, stupified with tobacco and 'starkes bier.' They have no thought for any thing but themselves, and their own immediate occupations." Perceiving at length one whose better dress and more intelligent look bespoke a rank above the common, I made the effort with ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... silver sheen, Sweet moon, from thee Afforded me A tranquil joy, Me, then, a happy boy. Still makes thy light My window bright, But can no more Lost peace restore: My brow is shaded, My cheek with weeping faded. Thy beams, O moon, Will glitter soon, As softly clear, Upon my bier: For soon, earth must ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various
... is wound, and this stroke shall be The last, when it falls, of his destiny; Save he sell to another his birthright here, Then the buyer shall buy both grave and bier." ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... the flames, and wash and anoint the chill body, and make their moan; then, their weeping done, lay his limbs on the pillow, and spread over it crimson raiment, the accustomed pall. Some uplift the heavy bier, a melancholy service, and with averted faces in their ancestral fashion hold and thrust in the torch. Gifts of frankincense, food, and bowls of olive oil, are poured and piled upon the fire. After the embers sank in and the flame died away, they soaked ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... together, a handkerchief wrapped under his chin, and fastened over his head, and then all the bystanders after him repeated aloud the profession of the true faith. By this time some of his relatives had gathered round him, and had begun the usual lamentations, when the bier was brought, and the dead body conveyed to ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... the end of a year I sought that infant cherished, That highly respectable Gondolier Was lying a corpse on his humble bier - I dropped a Grand Inquisitor's tear ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... still remember having seen them painted; and we have also testimony in the cartoons which are still to be found in the possession of his successors. On his own account, likewise, he afterwards painted the bier and the dead body contained therein, with the other things, so highly extolled, that are around it, in the Scuola of S. Caterina da Siena; and although certain men of Siena, carried away by love of their own country, attribute these works to others, it may easily be recognized that they are ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... assembly here, With marble brow, and close-shut eye, And pallid lip,—while o'er her bier, The dirge ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... there's plenty in the bowl,' said the old woman, calling to her; 'I'll do the bacon. Was not we lucky to be up—The boy's gone to bed, but waken him,' said she, turning to the postillion; 'and he'll help you with the chay, and put your horses in the bier for the night.' ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... such occasions, were put into the long-boat, into which the captain entered, with ten sailors, six musicians, and myself. We found horses and mules waiting for us on the shore, and we soon reached the house of death, before which a great many tar barrels were burning, and in the centre stood a bier, upon which the coffin was placed. A number of mourners, among whom were twelve or fifteen ladies, now greeted us. We returned their salutations and entered the brilliantly lighted saloon, hung with black, ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... were 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
... lager bier," ordered Madame Dort, on her invitation being accepted, the old nurse proceeding to execute the ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... dead, dead, dead! The words rang in their hearts in 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
... be pulled to pieces, and the baggage and that to be carried by mules. We ourselves were wrapped up in our furs, and seated upon a sort of matted chair without legs, which is carried upon poles in the manner of a bier, and so began to ascend by the help of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... wooden top which he carried in his hand, as if thereby to collect his ideas. A barrel of red and a barrel of white wine stood on trestles in the guests' room, and they were already filling the schoppins by hundreds and ranging them on shelves,—honestly filling, not as lager-bier is filled in New York, one third foam, but waiting until the froth subsided, and then pouring to the very brim. In the kitchen there were three fires blazing, stacks of Bratwurst on the tables, great ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... but virtue alone and meritorious works serve man on his bier and gain him eternal glory. O you Frenchmen, see the cause and ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... left in Ruth's glass; but it was said afterwards that she had not drunk out of the cup that she had handed to Ruth. Be this as it may, a house of joy was turned into a house of tears. Bridegroom, parents and friends fell into procession, and we who were coming down the street met the bier, and after hearing the story of the girl's death Jesus said: let me speak to her, and, leaning over her, he whispered in her ear, and soon after we thought it was the wind that stirred the folds of her garments, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... just and clement a prince as our annals can show in their long line, 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
... last 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 ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... of thick canvass—still bearing traces of the foliage and garlands of flowers originally painted in bright colours upon it—in which they had sewed it securely, so that it looked not unlike an Egyptian mummy. A board resting on two cross pieces of wood served as a bier, and, the body being placed upon it, was carried by Herode, Blazius, Scapin and Leander. A large, black velvet cloak, adorned with spangles, which was used upon the stage by sovereign pontiffs or venerable necromancers, did duty as a pall—not inappropriately surely. The little cortege left the ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... Casimir. This was the third anniversary. At the funeral feast, Grazian had informed his good friends, boon companions, clergy, scholars, singers, and buffoons, that every year this festival of mourning would be celebrated in Mitosin Castle, just as when the bier still stood in the hall, and the comrades came one by one to offer the dead a beaker and then drink the same to his happy resurrection; for mourning mingles in Hungary's rejoicings, so that one ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... 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 cloth, and so place it in the bier. Then one of his relatives takes ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... the funeral train at Caen, it was met by Gislebert, bishop of Evreux, then abbot of St. Stephen's, at the head of his monks, attended with a numerous throng of clergy and laity; but scarcely had the bier been brought within the gates, when the report was spread that a dreadful fire had broken out in another part of the town, and the Duke's remains were a second time deserted. The monks alone remained; and, fearful and irresolute, they bore their founder "with candle, with ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... shall hope set wide the door, Hope that hailed him hither, fain to greet him here. All the gracious garden-flowers he held so dear, Oldworld English blossoms, all his homestead store, Oldworld grief had strewn them round his bier of yore, Bidding each drop leaf by leaf as tear by tear; Rarer lutes than mine had borne more tuneful token, Touched by subtler hands than echoing time can wrong, Sweet as flowers had strewn his graveward path along. Now may no such old sweet dirges more be spoken, Now the flowers whose ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... bountiful provision was made for his family; a public funeral was awarded to his remains, and monuments in the principal cities of his native land were erected to his memory. A sorrowing nation lamented over his bier, and Britania, indeed, felt that old England's defender was ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... embarkation in Santo Domingo. On January 19, 1796, they were landed amid the booming of guns, conducted in state by the civil and military authorities and a large concourse to the plaza, and deposited on a magnificent bier in the shadow of the column erected where, according to tradition, the first mass was said in Havana and the first municipal council met. Here the ark was formally delivered to the Governor of Havana, who had it opened and its contents inspected, whereupon it ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... of one winter's day, A few short months ago, Then Emma's bier was borne away O'er wastes of frozen snow. She's thinking how that drifted snow Dissolved in spring's first gleam, And how her sister's memory now Fades, even as fades ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... yon pibroch sound sad in the gale, Where a band cometh slowly with weeping and wail? 'Tis the chief of Glenara laments for his dear; And her sire, and the people, are call'd to her bier. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... mouth, and she was dead. They lifted her up, sought if anything poisonous was to be found, cut her laces, combed her hair, washed her with water and wine, but all was of no avail, the poor child was dead, and remained dead. Then they laid her on a bier, and sat all seven of them round it, and wept and lamented three whole days. And then they would have buried her, but that she looked still as if she were living, with her beautiful blooming cheeks. So ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... which had been extended for so long; and that, on the strength of the ancient authority of their general, they might exact the usual tribute from their subjects. So, the lifeless corpse was carried away by them in such a way that it seemed to be taken, not in a funeral bier, but in a royal carriage, as if it were a due and proper tribute from the soldiers to an infirm old man not in full possession of his forces. Such splendour did his friends bestow on him even in death. But when his limbs rotted, and were seized with extreme decay, and when the corruption could ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... corse was embalm'd, 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 myrtle ...
— The Butterfly's Funeral - A Sequel to the Butterfly's Ball and Grasshopper's Feast • J. L. B.
... dead, followed by the soldiers, to plunge their bayonets into her had she shown any signs of life. But death had been merciful; and the still lovely corpse—for not a shot had struck her countenance—was placed on a bier, and ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... music of the several corps, paraded, in Robinson Street, until the standard of the Cincinnati, shrouded in crepe, was waved before the open door of Mr. Church's house. The regiment immediately halted and rested on its reversed arms, until the bier had been carried from the house to the centre of the street, when the procession immediately formed. This was the ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... 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 ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... God." This repetition may appear extraordinary to the English reader; but let it be observed that the Muhamedans never use the pronoun for the name of the Omnipotent, but invariably the noun. The body is taken out of the bier, and laid in the ground, the face upwards, without any coffin or box, the legs towards Mecca, and then covered with earth, so that it might, at the resurrection, rise with its eyes towards (El Kaaba) Muhamed's mausoleum. No ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... possible. When she was dead the community had the opportunity of discovering the number of her friends. Miserable children with faces which revealed two generations of hunger, homeless boys with vicious countenances, miserable wrecks of humanity, women with bloated faces, came to weep over Nora's bier, and to lay a flower there, and to scuttle away, more abjectly lonely than even sin could make them. If the cats and the dogs, the sparrows and horses to which she had shown kindness, could also have attended her funeral, ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... solemn procession advancing up that dismal, sunless gorge. At the head of it rode none other than the beautiful Khania, followed by her great-uncle, the old Shaman, and after these came a company of shaven priests in their white robes, bearing between them a bier, upon which, its face uncovered, lay the body of the Khan, draped in a black garment. Yet he looked better thus than he had ever done, for now death had touched this insane and dissolute man with something of the dignity ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... strong, parallel bars of wood set two or three or even four inches apart. There may be fifty or sixty of these dents to one inch, for weaving very fine linen; usually there are about twenty, which gives a "bier"—a counting out of forty warp-threads to each inch. Sleys were numbered according to the number of biers they held. The number of dents to an inch determined the "set of the web," the fineness of the piece. This reed is placed in a groove on the lower edge of a heavy ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... there was soldier's funeral; poor Kleist's coffin borne by twelve Russian grenadiers; very many Russian Officers attending, who had come from the Camp for that end; one Russian Staff-Officer of them unbuckling his own sword to lay on the bier, as there was want of one. King Friedrich had Kleist's Portrait hung in the Garnison Kirche. Freemason Lodge, in 1788, set up a monument to him," [Kriele, pp. 39-43.]—which still stands on the Frankfurt pavement, and is now in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... dead. You might have chanced to hear of your Richard on his bier, but for the friend I sent to fetch you. Another shake of the hand, Marchioness, if you please. Sit ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... off towards the hacienda of San Carlos— the Indians who carry the bier marching in solemn silence. On that bier two corpses are laid side by side—the Spaniard Don Fernando de Lacarra by the side of ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... impart life. When they were carrying the young man out of Nain He had compassion on the widowed mother and came and touched the bier and said, "Young man, I say unto thee, ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... development of our town. Mrs. Weld is remembered with great respect and admiration for her character and life work. She lived to a great age, happy in the prosperity and the loving devotion of her children. We recall the beautiful the touching scene when her form was carried on the bier by her noble sons, followed by the other mourners, all walking from her house to the family tomb in the little church cemetery, and lovingly laid at rest, without the touch of a ...
— Annals and Reminiscences of Jamaica Plain • Harriet Manning Whitcomb
... church-tower there was a little penthouse, or lean-to,—merely a stone roof, about three or four feet high, and supported by a single pillar, beneath which was once deposited the bier. ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... significance of the words was made clear to him. Heavy steps were heard in the corridor. They ceased at the door, and now—now four men entered the parlor and laid gently on the floor the burden they had been carrying. The burden was a bier, covered with a cloth, under which could be seen the ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... besides, prayed God to bless his government. After this, they betook themselves to prepare for the king's funeral; and Archelaus omitted nothing of magnificence therein, but brought out all the royal ornaments to augment the pomp of the deceased. There was a bier all of gold, embroidered with precious stones, and a purple bed of various contexture, with the dead body upon it, covered with purple; and a diadem was put upon his head, and a crown of gold above it, and a sceptre in his right hand; and near to the bier were Herod's ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... And you should come to my cold corpse and, kneel, Clasping my bier to show the grief you feel, I say, if I should die to-night And you should come to me, and there and then Just even hint at paying me that ten, I might arise the while, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... wert so fair and dear That death would fain disown thee, grief made wise With prophecy thy husband's widowed eyes, And bade him call the master's art to rear Thy perfect image on the sculptured bier, With dreaming lids, hands laid in peaceful guise Beneath the breast that seems to fall and rise, And lips that at love's call should ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... lo, did the funeral procession make its sad way. Rough was the road toward which it tended and gloomy the valley with gaping tombs. And through this dark valley did the sad note of the funeral dirge sound and with great sobbing and wailing did the mourners march beside the bier whereon lay the dead son of the widow. Thus did the march of Life and the march of Death make toward each other and the way was wide enough but for one of them to pass. On, on they marched, the one passing to the hilltop and blue sky, the other to the bat-ridden place ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... lane a funeral procession approaches the bank at a quick pace. The strains of anything but melodious music disturb the quiet of the evening, and the noise of drums is echoed from the walls of the pagodas. The corpse is borne on a bier covered with a white sheet, and men of the caste of body-burners arrange it on the pyre, a pile of wood stacked up by the waterside. Then they set fire to the dry shavings, and the wood pile crackles. Thick clouds of smoke rise up and the smell of ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... bed, with its four black posts, looked like the fatal trestle, or bier. The slender body which lay upon it was still as death. The head nestled motionless in a deep indentation of the pillow. A slanting ray of the moon, coming between one of the window curtains and the window, fell upon the face, and showed it white and waxen; the lips, still red, parted to ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... possibility of his influence with the natives being of use to them. Now that hope was gone. The Spanish commander showed all respect for his memory. His body, arrayed in its royal robes, was laid upon a bier, and borne on the shoulders of those nobles who had remained with him to the last to his subjects in the city, whose wailings over it were distinctly heard by the Spaniards; but where he was buried, and with ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... dividing the mourners into two bodies, each alternately singing their part, and the whole at times joining in full chorus.... ... The body of the deceased, dressed in grave clothes, and ornamented with flowers, was placed on a bier, or some elevated spot. The relations and keepers (singing mourners) ranged themselves in two divisions, one at the head, and the other at the feet of the corpse. The bards and croteries had before prepared the funeral Caoinan. The chief ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... disturb your season due: For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer: Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. He must not float upon his watery bier Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, Without the ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... high honor? 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 ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... July 1st, the lovely English burying-ground without the walls of Florence opened its gates to receive one more occupant. A band of English, Americans, and Italians, sorrowing men and women, whose faces as well as dress were in mourning, gathered around the bier containing all that was mortal of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Who of those present will forget the solemn scene, made doubly impressive by the grief of the husband and son? "The sting of death is sin," said the clergyman. Sinless ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... the Celtic race has settled. In Spain they are especially prevalent in Galicia and Asturias. There the estantigua or "ancient enemy" appears to those soon to die. These spirits, or almas en pena, appear wearing winding-sheets, bearing candles, a cross, and a bier on which a corpse is lying. Don Quijote in attacking the funeral procession probably thought he had to do with the estantigua. Furthermore, Said Armesto in his illuminating study "La Leyenda de Don Juan" proves that the custom of saying requiem masses for the living was very ancient ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... called Erling, and we planned all that we might for going, and after that we two went into the little church where lay Ethelbert the king. There was silence in it, and little light save for two tall tapers which burned at the head of the bier on which he lay, but I could see that all had been made ready against his showing to the people on the morrow. A priest sat on either side of the bier's head, and one of them read softly, so that I had not heard him at first. So I stood and ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... closer. "Thou wilt learn—as I also trust to do—in what nameless hole the serpent hid his remains. Then shall they be duly coffined and blazoned. All the monks in the cloisters for twenty miles round shall sing requiems, and thou and I will walk bareheaded, with candles in our hands, by the bier, till we rest him in the Blessed Friedmund's chapel; and there Lucas Handlein shall carve his tomb, and thou ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... when the body was opened it was found that his heart was absent. The scene is nominally inside a church: in the background is a procession of clergy and choristers with their cross and candles. In the centre is the bier with the corpse lying on it. The body is opened and the crowd looks on in feverish though suppressed excitement. St. Anthony is pointing towards the dead man: and the crowd realises that the heart is absent—ubi thesaurus ibi cor. Numbers of people have ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... dead!—bewilder'd, betray'd, beguiled; Swept on by faction's fiery blast. In its blood-stain'd track, a fool, a child! His doom is fix'd—his lot is cast. Yet scowls by his bier earth's blackest knave. Be ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... placing the body on the litter on which he had been brought to the tent, they carried it to the banyan tree, where the rest of their tribe, with the horrible devil-dancers, were still assembled. Mr Fordyce, Nowell, and I followed. They halted with the bier, and one of them stepping forward, addressed the tribe, pointing occasionally with great significance at the body. The countenances of many of them exhibited great astonishment; still more so, when six of those who had been listening to the dying Veddah's exhortations stepped ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... whither he had gone to receive the report of the secret agents whom he had lately despatched to Paris on an errand of peculiar delicacy. The agents had failed in their mission, and Von Stroebel was not tolerant of failure. Perhaps if he had known that within a week the tapers would burn about his bier in Saint Stephen's Cathedral, at Vienna, while his life and public services would be estimated in varying degrees of admiration or execration by the newspapers of Europe, he might not have dealt so harshly with ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... to a prison, never again to unclose to his living form) stood to watch the destruction of the host gathered in his name; and to that spot the corpses of Warwick and Montagu were removed, while a bier was prepared to convey their remains to London; [The bodies of Montagu and the earl were exhibited bareheaded at St. Paul's church for three days, "that no pretence of their being alive might stir up any ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... those of her father, in the cemetery of the Baptist church at Roxborough, Pa., on Friday, the 30th of December, 1864. A number of the convalescent soldiers from the Filbert Street Hospital in the city, with which she was connected, attended her funeral; and her bier was borne by four of those who had so far recovered as to be able to perform this last ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... change in one short year, I cannot, cannot understand; Oh, why to cast upon Love's bier, Whose name was written in the ...
— The Rose-Jar • Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel) Jones
... beheld a bier borne by six piskies, and on it was the body—no bigger than a small doll, he said—of a beautiful lady. The mournful procession moved forward to the sanctuary, where Richard observed two tiny figures digging a wee grave quite ...
— Legend Land, Volume 2 • Various
... like beef steak and beer because Lee asked him if suppose we went in somewheres and wanted a steak and bread and butter and beer and the French for and is und so we would say beef steak und brot mit butter schmieren und bier and that's all they is to it and I can say that without looking at the paper where we wrote it down and you can see I have got that much learned all ready so I wouldn't starve and when you want to call a waiter you call him kellner so you see I could ...
— The Real Dope • Ring Lardner
... take with me as a present—a relic of the old superstition which the people of this island have introduced into Christianity. These presents are supposed to calm the soul of the deceased. The corpse was lying in a narrow coffin, upon a low bier, both of which were covered with a white pall. Before the bier were hung two straw mats, on which were spread the deceased's clothes, drinking vessels, knives, and so forth, while on the other, lay the presents, making quite a heap, of shirts, pareos, pieces of ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... thy friend's low bier, Dost shed the bitter drops like rain, Hope that a brighter, happier sphere Will give ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... by which they had engaged themselves for the defence of his person; and to these he added only a few words of his own. The magistrates and others who had formerly filled the highest offices, carried the bier from the Rostra into the Forum. While some proposed that the body should be burnt in the sanctuary of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and others in Pompey's senate-house; on a sudden, two men, with swords by their sides, and spears in their hands, set fire to ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... resting-place the external calm disappeared—the props of consolation, the support of faith, gave way. He opened the door, entered, closed it behind him, and by the light of the lamp suspended from the whitewashed rafters saw Sister Benigna lying on the bier, dressed in white garments, with a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... Scotland! may a stranger twine One cypress wreath around thy honoured urn?— Yet, when I meditate on faith like thine, I feel my breast with sacred ardour burn; Deep admiration checks the starting tear,— Such drops would stain a Ewing's holy bier! ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... feelings of annoyance that he saw before the side door of the church a tiny litter cheaply decorated with bright paper and red cloth. The yellow candles threw a fitful light over the little image on the bier. It was the image of a child, a thing of wax, clothed in a white dress, with a tinsel crown upon its head. One of the sacristans was drumming a tattoo upon the bells. The padre motioned him to discontinue. He would have his gin-and-water first, and then devotions, lasting twenty minutes. ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... cold and lifeless; that 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 should ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... amid the other voices, and yet who was the first to trace, as with an invisible hand, a sketch of the nocturnal funeral train, proved vain. Each one's fancy silently carried out the picture further; they saw the body itself on the stretcher; the bier was depicted with distinctness as if it were a concrete token of the mysterious deed; a carpenter even drew it in chalk in bold strokes on the wall of the court-house. A woman who suffered from insomnia stated that she was sitting at the window that night and in spite of the ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... rode home, filled with thoughts of the girl, to put on his mourning clothes and take his decorous place in the circle that watched his uncle's bier. ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... of your Society, like the Nation at large, found themselves within the shadow of a profound grief, and oppressed by a sense of sadness akin to the sorrow of a personal bereavement, as they stood with uncovered heads beside the bier of William T. Sherman; when the echo of his guns gave place to the tolling of cathedral bells; when the flag of his country, which had never been lowered in his presence, dropped to half-mast, as if conscious that his strong ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... Helen, she and her companion wandered into the village, to ascertain where the funeral was to be held. It was in the meeting-house, and thither they went, and seated themselves on the bier outside the door. Becoming tired of this, they trudged on. One of them lost her shoe in the mud, and stopping at a house to dry their stockings, they were captured by two Amherst professors, who had come over to Hadley to attend the funeral. ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... screams no more Defiance high and loud; The wing is broken that could soar Through battle's smoky cloud, And wounded by a coward's spear, His perch is now lost Poland's bier. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... When the bier, borne by the undertaker's men, passed through the west door, the delicious rays of a winter sun fell on the faces of the women and the roses lying on the coffin. Grouped on either side of the parvis, a few young men from the great colleges ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... tears will never stop; For as a player, I can't squeeze out one drop: I am undone, that's all—shall lose my bread— I'd rather, but that's nothing—lose my head. When the sweet maid is laid upon the bier, Shuter and I shall be chief mourners here. To her a mawkish drab of spurious breed, Who deals in sentimentals, will succeed! Poor Ned and I are dead to all intents; We can as soon speak Greek as sentiments! Both nervous grown, to ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... is not here— Such thoughts should shake my soul; nor now Where glory seals the hero's bier, Or binds ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt |
