"Bier" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... books; while, at intervals, the priests chanted the appointed portions of the liturgy; after which all the bells of the town began to toll, and the swan song was raised, "Now in joy I pass from earth." Whereupon the nobles lifted up the bier again, and the procession moved forwards. And could my gracious Prince have looked out through the little window above his head, he would have seen not only the blessed cross, but also his dear town, from street to tower, covered with weeping human faces: for the procession passed on through ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... 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
... 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 lost, the ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... Khakan. Then his son Nur al-Din Ali arose and made ready his funeral, and the Emirs and Wazirs and high Officers of State and city-notables were present, amongst them the Wazir al-Mu'in bin Sawi. And as the bier went forth from the house some one in the crowd of mourners began to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... them with a cry, "Here. . . . Here it is!" The old folks tried to run, almost falling at every step. All the family were soon grouped around a heap of earth in the vague outline of a bier, and beginning to be covered with herbage. At the head was a cross with letters cut in deep with the point of a knife, the kind deed of some of his comrades-at-arms—"DESNOYERS." . . . Then in military abbreviations, the rank, regiment ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... more dangerous or dreadful in the spirit than he had been in the flesh.... Fortunate young man! Were he only on sentry-go outside the peaceful mortuary and Damocles de Warrenne stretched on the bier within, to await the morrow and its pomp and ceremony, when the carcass of the dead soldier would receive honours never paid to the living, sentient man, be he never so worthy, heroic, virtuous and deserving. Oh, to be lying in there at rest, to be on the other ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... with the Cowslip is copied by Mrs. Hemans, who speaks of "Pale Cowslips, meet for maiden's early bier;" but these are exceptions. All the other poets who have written of the Cowslip (and they are very numerous) tell of its joyousness, and brightness, and tender beauty, and its "bland, ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... for any that comes anear, That lies on its moveless breast; The grumbling water shall be his bier, And never ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... crowd falls back. Astonishment, awe. This coarse Dutchman has suppressed the incident of the bystanders holding their nose, to which the Giottesques clung desperately. This is not a moment to think of stenches or infection. Entombment: Night. The platform below the cross. A bier, empty, spread with a winding-sheet, an old man arranging it at the head. The dead Saviour being slipped down from the cross on a sheet, two men on a ladder letting the body down, others below receiving it, trying to prevent the arm from ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... 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 would yearn of Arthur's gold; and thereafter full soon ...
— Brut • Layamon
... O Lady Jane! 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
... hydraulic cranes were still, and the winches of the trawlers had ceased their screaming. Not a sound was to be heard save the shrill poignant cry of the gulls and the hissing of an exhaust pipe. As the colonel looked across the still waters of the harbour basin he saw a bier, covered with a Union Jack, being slowly carried across the gangway of the leave-boat; a little group of officers followed it. In a few moments the leave-boat, after a premonitory blast from the siren ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... into its true and illuminating relation to two other and evidently older crosses—at the feet of both and at right angles to them. In her death as in her life that gaunt, austere Hester was faithful, and like the stone hound at the ancient knight's bier she ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... recalled the request 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 ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... and Accolon's both; but Sir Accolon died within four days, for he had bled so much blood that he might not live, but King Arthur was well recovered. So when Accolon was dead he let send him on an horse-bier with six knights unto Camelot, and said: Bear him to my sister Morgan le Fay, and say that I send her him to a present, and tell her I have my sword Excalibur and the scabbard; so they ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... human pride!— The mighty chiefs sleep side by side. Drop upon Fox's grave the tear, 'Twill trickle to his rival's bier," etc. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... very moment of which we write, a group of black-clad mourners were standing near one of the pleasantest houses in the isolated village of Tannenegg, waiting for the sound of the church bell, as the signal to lift the covered bier on which was stretched the body of a young woman, the last victim to the north wind's cruel stroke, and to bear her to her final resting place. In the quiet room within, two children were seated on a bench, which ran along the wall. They formed a striking ...
— Veronica And Other Friends - Two Stories For Children • Johanna (Heusser) Spyri
... a foot's pace in the troop of men-at-arms, all in full armour, which glanced in the light of the sixteen hundred torches which were borne before, behind, and in the midst of the procession, which escorted the bier. Outside the coffin, arrayed in ducal coronet and robes, with the Golden Fleece collar round the neck, lay the exact likeness of the aged Duke, and on shields around the pall, as well as on banners borne waving aloft, were the armorial bearings ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... placed several of the small tables together, forming them into a sort of bier. Then they stood by while others pushed their way in through the swing doors. Finally, two men stood just inside, holding the doors open, while two of the ranchmen carried in their ominous, silent burden. Doc Crombie was the last but one to enter. The man who came last was the evil-minded ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... minutes later and all was prepared. A bier and canopy were brought out of the adjoining cathedral, and the corpse was placed upon the former. Father Anselmo then headed the procession, which passed through the principal gate of the palace into the square, chanting the usual service. The Piazzetta and the piazza ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and dodge her; she then went home. Morgiana, on her return, warmed 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 that it was done already. Shortly after this the imaun and the other ministers of the mosque arrived. ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... the occasion, and dust sprinkled on the head. The survivors are thus reduced to a more pitiable condition than the deceased: while they in all probability are rolling about and dashing their heads on the ground, he, bravely attired and gloriously garlanded, reposes gracefully upon his lofty bier, adorned as it were for some pageant. The mother—nay, it is the father, as likely as not,—now advances from among the relatives, falls upon the bier (to heighten the dramatic effect, we will suppose its occupant to be young and handsome), and utters wild and meaningless ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... with their laurels. The ceremony was at an end. The torches were extinguished; the crowd dispersed. But, by the light of two candles still burning on the altar, might be seen the form of a small, now middle-aged woman who had flung herself upon the bier, whilst a pale young man ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... wife, his dwelling, his spear, his comb, his sleep, his dreams, his anger, the mutual anger of several chiefs, his food, his pleasure in eating, the food and eating of his pigeons, his ulcers, his cough, his sickness, his recovery, his death, his being carried on a bier, the exhumation of his bones, and his skull after death. To address these demigods is quite a branch of knowledge, and he who goes to visit a high chief does well to make sure of the competence of his interpreter. To complete the picture, the same word signifies ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... people. Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and much people of the city was with her. And when the Lord 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, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak: and he delivered him to his mother. And there came a fear on all, and they glorified God, saying, that a great Prophet ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... when dark Death shall be thy final guest, No lover true will shed the faithful tear, Nor bring an offering where thy ashes rest, Nor lay one garland on thy lonely bier I ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... not 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 ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... foliage and of sweat. From under the feet of the machilla carriers a cloud of mauve butterflies rose like flowers to strew themselves over her soft body. It was as if the machilla had suddenly become a bier. ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... thirty men in flat caps trimmed with fur and gabardines of cotton velvet, purple, or yellow, or pink, chanting psalms as they march, with the body of the dead man wrapped in linen cloth and carried on a rude bier on their shoulders. They seem in haste, (because the hour is late and the burial must be made before sunset), perhaps a little indifferent, or almost joyful. Certainly there is no sign of grief in their looks or their voices; ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... had pressed in awe and in wonder; for on that spot had Henry (now sadly led back 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 rebellion afterwards;... they were then carried down to the Priory of ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the chiefs, and they all knelt to Harold. The young Prince stood a moment irresolute, for his dead father was on the bier before him, and revenge was yet a virtue in the heart of a sea-king. But lifting his eyes to Harold's, the mild and gentle majesty of the Saxon's brow was irresistible in its benign command; and stretching his right hand to the King, he raised on high the other, ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 were erected in ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... loan told cite hair seed night knit made peace in waist bread climb heard sent sun some air tares rain way wait threw fir hart pause would pear fair mane lead meat rest scent bough reign scene sail bier pray right toe yew sale prey rite rough tow steal done bare their creek soul draught four base beet heel but steaks coarse choir cord chaste boar butt stake waive choose stayed cast maze ween hour ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... Nils' bier was a painter's stage, and four of the lad's shipmates held the plank upon their shoulders, with the weighted feet of the shrouded form pointed outboard. The rest of us, sailors and stiffs, stood about with bared, bowed heads; aye, and most of us, I think, with wet eyes and tight throats. ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... they feared, would attack them in the night. Captain Lewis endeavored to assume a cheerfulness he did not feel, to prevent the despondency of the savages. After conversing gayly with them he retired to his mosquito-bier, by the side of which the chief now placed himself. He lay down, yet slept but little, being in fact scarcely less uneasy than his Indian companions. He was apprehensive that, finding the ascent of the river impracticable, Captain Clark might have stopped below Rattlesnake ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... was OOSTERHOUTS UND BREDA'S BIER HUIS. Mr. George said that Breda was a place not far from Rotterdam, and that the last part of the sign must mean house for selling Breda beer. Rollo then concluded that the first word must mean something connected ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott
... her in good stead in certain old ballads with an irresistibly quaint twist in them. She made it perfectly clear that she was sorry for the poor lady who was running around the meadow preparing her flowery bier, but the conviction crept over you that she was secretly amused at the same time. Appleton heard the smile in her voice before he pulled aside the curtain and saw its counterpart on her face; heard and responded, for when Tommy ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... 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 strive. Let him never dream that his bullet's ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... when it shall be That this low breath is gone from me, And round my bier ye come to weep, Let one most loving of you all Say, "Not a tear must o'er her fall! He ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... 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 ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... 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, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... the starved and exhausted malamutes dragged their silent burden into the Northwest Mounted Police outpost barracks at Crooked Bow twenty-four hours later, an ax and a sapling bar were required to pry Francois Breault from his bier. Previous to this process, however, Sergeant Fitzgerald, in charge at the outpost, took possession of the soiled envelope pinned to Breault's red scarf. The information it bore was simple, and yet exceedingly definite. Few men in dying as Breault had died could have made the matter easier ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... Brignolles, thirteen houses are pillaged from top to bottom, and thirty others partly half.—At Aupt, M. de Montferrat, in defending himself, is killed and "hacked to pieces."—At La Seyne, the mob, led by a peasant, assembles by beat of drum. Some women fetch a bier, and set it down before the house of a leading bourgeois, telling him to prepare for death, and that "they will have the honor of burying him." He escapes; his house is pillaged, as well as the bureau ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... official a mundane formidableness that overtopped the charnel-house flavor of his more habitual duties. He was visible through the unchinked logs of the little room where the inquest was in progress, barely spacious enough to contain the bier, the jury, and the witness under examination; and yet so great was the sound of the rain outside and the stir of the assemblage that little or naught ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... loyal and bold That lay on a soldier's bier,— The stretchers borne to the rear, The hammocks lowered ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... addressing the tall fedai who all this while had lain upon his face before him, still as the form that was stretched upon the bier. "There should have been another prisoner, the great emir Hassan. Also, where is the ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... o'er the rugged bier The soldier drops the mournful tear, For life departed, valour driven, Fresh from the field ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... of procedure, in some of which, as in the trial of the cross and the touching of the bier, the supposed criminal was confronted with his victim. Ordeals were abolished in England in the year 1219; but the tradition did not die, and in the time of the Commonwealth, Hopkins, the notorious ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... TEARS 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 a ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... him? I wondered angrily. The thing was almost weird. Of a sudden, with irritation, yet with dread, too, I felt myself on the threshold of a house of tragedy. The man might, from the look of him, have been watching some loved young master's bier. ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... 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 should awake, he would let ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... "Well, well, Adolph, have to fix you up, eh?" Quietly, to the wife, "Hat die drug store my schwartze bag hier geschickt? So—schon. Wie viel Uhr ist 's? Sieben? Nun, lassen uns ein wenig supper zuerst haben. Got any of that good beer left—giebt 's noch Bier?" ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... when, to our delight, Mr. Grayson, who had returned from Europe, again addressed her. She accepted him; and I was, indeed, happy when I officiated as bridesmaid for her. One year after that joyous wedding we stood over her bier, weeping bitter, bitter tears. We laid her in the grave—and the heart-broken mother soon rested beside her. Among her papers was a letter directed to me; it was written in expectation of death, although we did not any of us anticipate ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... the body, which is first carried to a temple, where prayers are offered, and a sacred fire, kept continually burning there, is replenished. While the friends and mourners are engaged in worship, Nasr Salars, as the attendants are called, take the bier to the ante-room of one of the towers. There are five, of circular shape, with walls forty feet high, perfectly plain, and whitewashed. The largest is 276 feet in circumference and cost $150,000. The entrance is about fifteen or twenty feet from the ground and is reached ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... the horses of the Trojans shuddered for fear and turned back from the onslaught,—and thrice the men of Troy were confounded and shaken with terror. Then the Greeks drew the body of Patroclus out of the dust and the arrows, and laid him on a bier, and Achilles followed, weeping, for he had sent his friend with chariot and horses to the war; but home again he welcomed him never more. Then the sun set and ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... if e'er Thou shouldst press the soldier's bier, And the muffled drum should beat To the tread of mournful feet, Then this crimson flag shall be Martial cloak and shroud ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... strenuous fighter, stricken down Just when foes owned thee neither knave nor clown! The fiercest of them, time-taught, need not fear To drop a blossom now on BRADLAUGH's bier. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various
... of the natural man, who finds the world a world of action and joy, and time all too short for the fulness of life which it demands. When Agassiz died, "the best friend that ever student had," the students of Harvard "laid a wreath of laurel on his bier, and their manly voices sang a requiem, for he had been a student all his life long, and when he died he was younger ...
— The Philosophy of Despair • David Starr Jordan
... 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, where sat the mother ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... fiercely, whereupon instantly they scattered and disappeared, and, sword in hand, Sir Launcelot entered the little chapel. All was dark within, save that a little lamp hung from the roof, and by its dim light he could just espy how on a bier before the altar there lay, stark and cold, a knight sheathed in armor. And drawing nearer Sir Launcelot saw that the dead man lay on a blood-stained mantle, his naked sword by his side, but that his left hand had been lopped ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... seven brethren, And hew'd to her a bier; They hew'd it frae the solid aik, Laid it o'er wi' ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... for me. My youth was so blessed, so—so glorious, that it was natural I should strive to delude myself regarding its passing away. I perceive that for years I have continued to call that a bride-bed which was, in truth, a bier. I have struggled to keep my youth in fancy, as I have kept the red drawing-room in fact, unaltered. Is not all this pitifully vain and self-indulgent? I have solaced myself with the phantom of ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... best prospects are centred and her highest aspirations cherished, in the home of the moral, civic, and social vanguard of modern Italy, he found a grave. The American flag was his pall; American mariners carried his bier; before it was borne the Cross. His remains were followed from the Piazza della Maddelena, through the principal streets and the Porta Romana to the Campo Santo, by the officers and crew of the United States ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... 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 corpse ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... to-day. A voice is heard within thy marble walls, A voice lamenting for the youthful dead; For o'er the relics of her forest boy The mother of dead Empires weeps. And lo! Clad in white robes the long procession moves; Youths throng around the bier, and high in front, Star of our hope, the glorious cross is reared, Triumphant sign. The low, sweet voice of prayer, Flowing spontaneous from the spirit's depths, Pours its rich tones; and now the requiem swells, Now dies ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... 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 ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... hastened to the screen. The smoking wick in the night-lamp near Cambray's head illumined his ghastly face. Marie had already seen one such pallid countenance—that of the old servant Henry when he lay dead on his bier. ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... doubt, one of the details that caught his eye. The crown lying on the ledge of the bed is an arbitrary introduction, as naif as the angel. In the funeral scene the luminous light is diffused over all, the young saint lies upon her bier and is followed by priest and deacon, the crowd is composed with truth to nature, the draperies and garments are brought into harmony with the sky and background, and in all those that follow we ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... place a few days ago. His wound, a short time before, had shown improvement, but the heart was no longer equal to the terrible strain. Those of his comrades who were not confined to bed rallied round his coffin yesterday, which had been put upon a bier in the hospital garden surrounded by flowers ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... years ere this had seen My mind like theirs corrupted to its grave.[bh] But who hath seen me writhe, or heard me rave? 180 Perchance in such a cell we suffer more Than the wrecked sailor on his desert shore; The world is all before him—mine is here, Scarce twice the space they must accord my bier. What though he perish, he may lift his eye, And with a dying glance upbraid the sky; I will not raise my own in such reproof, Although 'tis clouded by my ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... not to crown their famous humanists till after death. Carlo Aretino and Leonardo Aretino were thus 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 ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... a 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 which he lacked ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... travellers, with eyes uplifted, following a star; a baby in a manger; a child in a spacious temple, talking with grave men; a solemn figure with a mild and beautiful face, raising a dead girl by the hand; again, near a city gate, calling back the son of a widow, on his bier, to life; a crowd of people looking through the opened roof of a chamber where he site, and letting down a sick person on a bed, with ropes; the same in a tempest, walking on the water to a ship; again, on a sea-shore, teaching a great multitude; again, with a child ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... 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
... gain;" and "the pension of a prince's praise" is stated to have been all their encouragement. Dryden, therefore, by no means sorrowed as if he had no hope; but, having said all that was decently mournful over the bier of Charles, tuned his lyrics to a sounding close in ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... be swathed in rich brocades of gold worthy his body. And when they had enfolded him, and Rustem learned that the Turanians had quitted the borders, he made ready his army to return unto Zaboulistan. And the nobles marched before the bier, and their heads were covered with ashes, and their garments were torn. And the drums of the war-elephants were shattered, and the cymbals broken, and the tails of the horses were shorn to the root, and all the signs ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... in the 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 and breaks ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... immediately follows upon the decease of the person; a practice common to all classes at Constantinople. The corpse is carried to the grave on a bier by the friends of the deceased: this is considered as a religious duty, it being declared in the Koran, that he who carries a dead body the space of forty paces, procures for himself the expiation of a great sin.[3] The graves are shallow, and thin boards only, laid ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various
... the Arctic was mine. Every mesh seemed to invite a separate draught. The winds of heaven—all four—played unceasingly upon me, and I became in due time a swaying mummy of ice. It was my delusion that I was a dead Indian cached aloft upon my arboreal bier—which is not a normal state of mind for ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... souls o'ertopped the stars; they had their hearts' desire, The while the world spun round and round its busy track of fire. "I've lived for this," said G. K. C. and tossed his flaming head; "Der Kerl ist stark, das Bier ist ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... first amidst the festival, And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear; And when they smiled because he deem'd it near, His heart more truly knew that peal too well Which stretch'd his father on a bloody bier, And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell; He rush'd into the ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... them asked me to call and see him at his home the next morning. I did so, and he handed me a Bible belonging to his mistress, who had died a few days before, and whose bier I had helped to carry to the family vault. He wanted me to read to him the eleventh chapter of Daniel. It seemed, that, as one of the means of keeping them quiet, the white clergymen during the winter and spring had read them some verses from it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... being set to watch the holy relics in the church after vespers, went to sleep and, during his slumbers, had a vision of two pigeons, one white and one gray and white, which came and sat upon the bier over the relics; while, at the same time, a voice ordered the man to tell his master that the holy martyrs had chosen another resting-place and desired to be transported thither ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... forever loved, forever dear! What fruitless tears have bathed thy honor'd bier! What sighs re-echo'd to thy parting breath, While thou wast struggling in the pangs of death! Could tears retard the tyrant in his course; Could sighs avert his dart's relentless force; Could youth and virtue claim ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... 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 opera ends, ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... Achaians with joy drew Patroklos forth of the darts and laid him on a litter, and his dear comrades stood around lamenting him; and among them followed fleet-footed Achilles, shedding hot tears, for his true comrade he saw lying on the bier, mangled by the keen bronze. Him sent he forth with chariot and horses unto the battle, but home again welcomed ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... fading leaves and dreary skies, A late-born rose burst into bloom And gazed about with sad surprise, 'Neath fading leaves and dreary skies; Let fall from Summer's bier, it lies In Autumn's pathway 'mid the gloom Of fading leaves and dreary skies, A late-born rose, ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... preserve themselves 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 priests would accompany a coffin, bearing the cross before it, and be joined on ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Elfrida, gazing at him with wondering, fascinated eyes, passed across his fancy; even the contact with his own race and his thoughts of their wrongs recalled to him the tomb of the soldier Atherly and the carven captive savage supporter. He could not pass the upright supported bier of an Indian brave—slowly desiccating in the desert air—without seeing in the dead warrior's paraphernalia of arms and trophies some resemblance to the cross-legged crusader on whose marble effigy SHE had girlishly perched herself as she told the story of her ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... remains of my much-loved 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 ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... mantle must conceal the thing from sight, For soon Rosalia, as I bade her, shall Be here. Oh, Heaven! vouchsafe to me the power To do this last stern act of justice. Thou Who called the child of Jairus from the dead, Assist a stricken father now to raise His sinless daughter from the bier of shame. And may her soul, unconscious of the deed, Forever walk the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... which we have no space may be accurately traced on this unique window. The most striking is the central medallion of the group in which the vengeance of the saint is shown forth. In the middle of a large room we see a bier on which lies the dead son; the father and mother, overcome with despair, stand at the head and feet of the body. Behind the bier are several figures, which, from their "unusually violent attitudes expressive of grief," Mr. Austin considered to be professional mourners. Above, unseen ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... And if she goes, my 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 keep our spirits ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... Michael now suffered from 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 that Dodi wanted ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... luring him back. Wolfram seeks to detain him, but is powerless until he mentions the name of Elizabeth, when the sirens vanish and their spells lose their attraction. A funeral procession approaches in the distance, and on the bier is the form of the saintly Elizabeth. He sinks down upon the coffin and dies. As his spirit passes away his pilgrim's staff miraculously bursts out into leaf and blossom, showing that ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... we 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 the banner and ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... a band Of wailing people, foremost one who swung An earthen bowl with lighted coals, behind The kinsmen shorn, with mourning marks, ungirt, Crying aloud, "O Rama, Rama, hear! Call upon Rama, brothers"; next the bier, Knit of four poles with bamboos interlaced, Whereon lay, stark and stiff, feet foremost, lean, Chapfallen, sightless, hollow-flanked, a-grin, Sprinkled with red and yellow dust—the Dead, Whom at the four-went ways they turned head first, And crying "Rama, Rama!" carried on To where a pile was ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... unchanged stem contains the vowel e, this is changed in the 2d and 3d singular to i (ie): cwean to say, stem cwi-; beran to bear, stem bier-. But this mutation[3] had taken place long before the period of O.E., and belongs to the Germanic languages in general. It is best, however, to class the change of e to i or ie with the changes due to umlaut, since it occurs consistently in the 2d and 3d singular stems of Early ...
— Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book - with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary • C. Alphonso Smith
... stand For evermore outside the fairyland Of thy good will? Alas! my place is here, To muse and moan and sigh and shed my tear, My paltry tear for one who loves me not, And would not mourn for me on my death-bier. ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... the corpse and carried it on a black bier to St. Michael's church, where it lay in state during the requiem, that the people might convince themselves of the death of the beloved and feared commander-in-chief of the Tyrol, Le General Sanvird, Andreas ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... professional associates. And when from a far country, whither she had gone in hope to escape a fell disease, her lifeless corpse was brought back for sepulture, many of the foremost lawyers of Chicago gathered about her bier and bore emphatic testimony to her virtues as a woman and her attainments as a lawyer. To me no greater work has been done by any American woman. When Alta Hulett unobtrusively, silently but indomitably pressed her way to the front of the legal profession, and established herself ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... 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
... bier? Is a gentleman to be kept waiting all night for his bier?" he exclaimed, with ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... sound Thrice seized the Trojans, and their famed allies. 280 Twelve in that moment of their noblest died By their own spears and chariots, and with joy The Grecians from beneath a hill of darts Dragging Patroclus, placed him on his bier. Around him throng'd his fellow-warriors bold, 285 All weeping, after whom Achilles went Fast-weeping also at the doleful sight Of his true friend on his funereal bed Extended, gash'd with many a mortal wound, Whom he had sent into the fight with steeds ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... coffee, zwiebacks, hoernchens, and eggs. This meal over, they sat sleepily blinking their eyes, whisking away flies, and mopping the moisture from their faces until the sound of "Eis! meine Herrschaften!" "Bier! meine Herrschaften!" roused them from their lethargy. Ices and beer and cherries and peaches successively filled up the weary hours until "the tocsin of the soul, the dinner bell," carried joy ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... 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
... the case, and then 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 dropped on to their knees, ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... 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
... at once replied, "Whoe'er in this is guiltless, let him this proof abide. In sight of all the people let him approach the bier, And so to each beholder ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... for the word that is never said Till the ear is deaf to hear; And woe for the lack to the fainting head Of the ringing shout of cheer; Ah! woe for the laggard feet that tread In the mournful wake of the bier. A pitiful thing the gift to-day That is dross and nothing worth, Though if it had come but yesterday, It had brimmed with sweet the earth; A fading rose in a death-cold hand, That perished in ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... senseless dead body. The head was wreathed with laurel; a magnificent toga delayed for a while the shroud; and a procession took place through the city by torchlight, all the inhabitants pouring forth to behold it, and painters crowding over the bier to gaze on the poet's lineaments, from which they produced a multitude of portraits. The corpse was then buried in the church of St. Onofrio; and magnificent monuments talked of, which never appeared. Manso, however, obtained leave to set up a modest tablet; and eight years afterwards a Ferrarese ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... rescue! bear him hence Into the leaguer near; Pour balsam in his glorious wounds, And weep above his bier. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... 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. Among other ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... no kind domestic tear Pleas'd thy pale ghost, or grac'd thy mournful bier; By foreign hands thy ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... was reached, those who dug it—who were also of those who carried the bier—were surprised to find the bottom of the coffin-box strewn and hidden with wild flowers and ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... new-comer was not a stranger for long, for the jester, surprised at the sudden silence, looking up, and perceiving a gentleman attired not altogether unlike himself, thought fit to come to life again, and, springing from his bier, rushed towards the stranger, embraced ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... their rapid course they urge, A passing bell, a solemn dirge; Hoarse ravens join the strain. They see a coffin on a bier, A priest and mourners too appear, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... hath wings; Watch! for the foe is near; March! till the morning brings Fame-wreath or soldier's bier. So shall the poet write, When all hath ended well, 'Thus through the nation's ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... thou be hurt with horn of hart, it brings thee to they bier; But tusk of boar shall leeches ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... with a sponge affixed to its mouth, while a second thrust a spear into its side, from which came out a liquor having the colour of blood and water. This being carefully caught in a golden dish, the figure was taken down from the cross, wrapped round with white linen clothes, and laid upon a bier, when an imposing procession began in the following order: First marched a military band playing slow and solemn music; next came a guard of soldiers with heads bent down and arms reversed; then followed about two hundred monks belonging to different ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... 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 ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... wept for him. Then, as in a nightmare, it seemed to him that this hypothesis was realized. He saw the church hung with black, he heard the funeral chants. A catafalque contained his coffin, and slowly his betrothed came, with a trembling hand, to throw holy water on the cloth which covered the bier. And a ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... silent halls The notes of a requiem—solemn, clear, Falling like wail on each listening ear, And with tearful eyes and features pale, With low bowed head and close drawn veil, To the convent church, round a bier to kneel, The daughters of Marguerite ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon |
