"Bier" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not, or with zeal To combat fears that e'en the pious, feel? Now once again the gloomy scene explore, Less gloomy now; the bitter hour is o'er, The man of many sorrows sighs no more. - Up yonder hill, behold how sadly slow The bier moves winding from the vale below: There lie the happy dead, from trouble free, And the glad parish pays the frugal fee: No more, O Death! thy victim starts to hear Churchwarden stern, or kingly overseer; ...
— The Village and The Newspaper • George Crabbe
... went not; for death had visited the palace, and old King Ring was stretched upon his bier, while the bards around ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... family church of Santa Maria di Grotta Pinta. The Duke sent down word to his chaplain that the latter must marry him at once. That night a retainer of the house had been found murdered at the gate; his body lay on a trestle bier before the altar of the chapel when the Duke's message came; the Duke himself and Vittoria were already in the little winding stair that leads down from the apartments; there was not a moment to be lost; ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... robbed mother came Chris, silent as a ghost. Only the old woman's eyes moved as the girl entered, fell down by the bier, and buried her face in the pillow that supported her lover's head. Thus, in profound silence, both remained awhile, until Chris lifted herself and looked in the dead face and almost started to see the ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... I was just waiting till somebody called me off. I've shed more tears than Brutus ever dropped at the bier of Caesar. Wow! some kind person wipe my eyes, please; my hands are too rank to touch my tear-rag," he declared, and Will performed this friendly office, thinking that he deserved it ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... 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, 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
... bier Augustus Thomas delivered an eloquent address that fittingly summed up the life and purpose of the greatest force that the English-speaking theater has yet known. ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... warrior wide earth o'er the while he had joy of his jewels and burg. Let us set out in haste now, the second time to see and search this store of treasure, these wall-hid wonders, — the way I show you, — where, gathered near, ye may gaze your fill at broad-gold and rings. Let the bier, soon made, be all in order when out we come, our king and captain to carry thither — man beloved — where long he shall bide safe in the shelter of sovran God." Then the bairn of Weohstan bade command, ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... crowd. Through it he bore the limp figure to the cloth-covered card-table, and there, among the scattered emblems of Sam Kirby's calling, 'Poleon deposited his burden. By those cards and those celluloid disks the old gambler had made his living; grim fitness was in the fact that they should carpet his bier. ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... justly considered that the public archives constitute his enduring monument, on which are inscribed in characters not to be effaced the proudest evidences of public gratitude for services rendered and of sorrow for his death. A great and united people shed their tears over the bier of a devoted patriot and distinguished ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... was the note macabre, the proper note, the note that synchronised the circumambient enchantments. In the historical nights of which Perrault told, the princess had but a gesture to make, the offender sank dead. At once a bier was produced, the corpse was hurried away, and the veils of ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... given (although grudgingly, and with audible grumbling) by the friends of Muldoon across the table which had so lately been his bier, but in the end they took the Mexican out for ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... parsly in power, we shoult be a leetle ahead off dot mofement so, when it shoult be here, we hef a goot 'minadstration to fall beck on. Now, dere iss anoder brewery opened und trying to gombete mit me here in Canaan. If dot brewery owns der Mayor, all der tsaloons buying my bier must shut up at 'leven o'glock und Sundays, but der oders keep open. If I own der Mayor, I make der same against dot oder brewery. Now I am pooty sick off dot ways off bitsness und fighting all times. Also," Mr. Farbach added, with magnificent calmness, "my ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... the Funeral Procession slowly files out and begins to fill the Stage. Admetus beside the bier of Alcestis is calling on the Chorus (as representing the citizens of Pherae) to join in the invocations to the dead—when suddenly another Procession appears on the Stage [entering by the Right Side-door, as from the immediate neighborhood]: it is headed by ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... swords helmet, and steel gauntlets lying at his feet, a coronet, blazing with precious stones, upon his head, the jewelled chain and insignia of the Golden Fleece about his neck, and perfumed gloves upon his hands. Thus royally and martially arrayed, he was placed upon his bier and borne forth from the house where he had died, by the gentlemen of his bedchamber. From them he was received by the colonels of the regiments stationed next his own quarters. These chiefs, followed by their troops ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... saw 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 ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... since he'd willed it so, they laid him on his bier to bear him back again unto his father's house. And when they found the Sword of Conquest hidden underneath his mantle, they marvelled he had carried such a treasure with him through the years, all unbeknown even to those who walked ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... 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 in life, her death, then, was without sting; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... shortly followed. Her affection for the old manager had been that of a loving daughter; the grief she should have experienced over the passing of the marquis was transferred to the memory of one who had been a father through love's kinship. In the far-away past, standing at the bier of her mother, the manager it was who had held her childish hand, consoling her and sharing her affliction, and, in those distant but unforgotten days of trouble, the young girl and the homeless old man became all in all to ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... recovered. The son at Harvard felt his loss greatly, and it was some time before he felt able to resume his studies. The elder Roosevelt's work as a philanthropist was well known, and many gathered at his bier to do him honor, while the public journals were filled with eulogies of the man. The poor mourned bitterly that he was gone, and even the newsboys were filled with regret over his taking away. In speaking of his parent, President Roosevelt once said: "I can remember ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... 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
... But the bier she falleth over, And her shrieks are loud and shrill— "I will have my lord, my lover! In the grave I seek him still. Shall that godlike frame be wasted By the fire's consuming blight? Mine it was—yea mine! though tasted Only one delicious night!" ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... the effect of which would be that for two-and-forty hours after drinking it she should appear cold and lifeless; and when the bridegroom came to fetch her in the morning, he would find her to appearance dead; that then she would be borne, as the manner in that country was, uncovered on a bier, to be buried in the family vault; that if she could put off womanish fear, and consent to this terrible trial, in forty-two hours after swallowing the liquid (such was its certain operation) she would be sure to awake, as from a dream; and before she should awake, he would ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... swells, not as from 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, ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... 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 ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... complaint, no kind domestic tear, Pleas'd thy pale ghost, or grac'd thy mournful bier: By harlots' hands thy dying eyes were clos'd; By harlots' hands thy decent limbs compos'd; By harlots' hands thy humble grave adorn'd; By harlots honour'd, and ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... 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
... is the north wind and rude is the blast That sweeps like a hurricane loudly and fast, As it moans through the tall waving pines lone and drear, Sings a requiem sad o'er the warrior's bier. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... impressive funeral. All the British pilots, and five hundred of their men marched, and the bier was followed by a battalion of French troops. Over and around the little French graveyard aviators flew dropping flowers. In later days less ceremony attended the last scene ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... question whether man has a spirit to come anywhence or to go anywhither than, perhaps, in the world's history could ever before have been found at one time. And the very Christians who claim that Death's terrors have been abolished, have surrounded the bier and the tomb with more gloom and more dismal funeral pomp than have the votaries of any other creed. What can be more depressing than the darkness in which a house is kept shrouded, while the dead body is awaiting ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... tender heart Make a grave for the joys of the Past! Let never a tear fall hot on their bier, But hurry them in as fast As we bury the Beautiful out of our sight, Ere corruption and horror ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... recoiled a step, with a cry of terror: he beheld a ghastly apparition; it seemed that there before his eyes, in the middle of the room, between the door and the cabinet which held the medallion, Alexander VI, motionless and livid, was lying on a bier at whose four corners there burned four torches. The cardinal stood still for a moment, his eyes fixed, and his hair standing on end, without strength to move either backward or forward; then thinking it was ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 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
... him yonder; Old Hager, he bust him here; But my heart will bust till I find him, And make a sketch of his bier. Oh shame on the Funkstown spirit That in Maryland does dwell! He wouldn't consent to be buried Where ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... wavering line upon the roof, the sickly flame of a candle partially fell upon the human figures before alluded to, throwing them into darkest relief, and casting their opaque and fantastical shadows along the ground. An old coffin upon a bier, we have said, served the mysterious twain for a seat. Between them stood a bottle and a glass, evidences that whatever might be the ulterior object of their stealthy communion, the immediate comfort of the creature had not been altogether overlooked. At the feet of ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... so did I. This is the last time you shall look on me: Ladies farewel; as soon as I am dead, Come all and watch one night about my Hearse; Bring each a mournful story and a tear To offer at it when I go to earth: With flattering Ivie clasp my Coffin round, Write on my brow my fortune, let my Bier Be born by Virgins that shall sing by course The truth of maids and perjuries ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... its terrors. The decease of every individual is announced to the community by solemn music from a band of instruments. Outward appearances of mourning are discountenanced. The whole congregation follows the bier to the graveyard, (which is commonly laid out as a garden,) accompanied by a band, playing the tunes of well-known verses, which express the hopes of eternal life and resurrection; and the corpse is deposited in the simple grave during the funeral service. The preservation of ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... to breaking in trying to pierce the gathered gloom in the vaulting overhead. It was a precious moment, but perhaps too weird, and we were glad to find a sacristan with businesslike activity setting red candlesticks about a bier in the area before the choir, which here, as in the other Spanish cathedrals, is planted frankly in the middle of the edifice, a church by itself, as if to emphasize the incomparable grandeur of the cathedral. The sacristan ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... Morgiana 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 ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... expected. Her funeral was attended by every one of note in the vicinity. Herman mingled with the throng without attracting any especial attention. After all the friends had taken their last look at the dead face, the young man approached the bier. He prostrated himself on the cold floor, and remained motionless for a long time. He rose at last with a face almost as pale as that of the corpse itself, and went up the steps to look into the casket. As he looked down it seemed to him that the rigid face returned his glance ...
— The Queen Of Spades - 1901 • Alexander Sergeievitch Poushkin
... dropped his cousin's arm, and seemed to forget his presence. He slowly removed the covering from the dead face and placed a candle so that the light fell upon it. Then he walked to the foot of the table, which served the purpose of a bier, and looked long and earnestly at the marble features, so changed, so passionless and calm in the repose of death! Terrible, indeed, was the sight to one who had sincerely loved Richard Luttrell—the strong man, full of lusty health and vigour, desirous of life, fortunate ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... 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
... went back into the Paradou, without even turning her head. Night was fast falling, and the garden was but a huge bier of shadows. ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... the people to weep and lament this man, and to honor his dead body with the usual solemnities; that is, by rending their garments, and putting on sackcloth, and that things should be the habit in which they should go before the bier; after which he followed it himself, with the elders and those that were rulers, lamenting Abner, and by his tears demonstrating his good-will to him while he was alive, and his sorrow for him now he was dead, and that he was not taken off with his consent. So he buried him at Hebron ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... citizens, our dead is here Made ready; and these youths to bear the bier Uplifted to the grave-mound and the urn. Now, seeing she goes forth never to return, Bid her your last ...
— Alcestis • Euripides
... we waged the battle, nor at last Desisted, but for tempests sent from Jove. At length we bore into the Greecian fleet Thy body from the field; there, first, we cleansed With tepid baths and oil'd thy shapely corse, Then placed thee on thy bier, while many a Greek 50 Around thee wept, and shore his locks for thee. Thy mother, also, hearing of thy death With her immortal nymphs from the abyss Arose and came; terrible was the sound On the salt flood; a panic seized the Greeks, And ev'ry warrior had return'd ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... school-children shed tears for Bin- 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 ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Ring out the signals of My Church for a solemn assembly; raise high your hymnal voices, open the doors of My house and its inner shrines: place near to the altar, which holds the Body of My Son, what is left of that brother or sister; finally, cover him a bier with costly palls, for at last he triumphs: crowd it with lamps and candles, circle round him, overthrown as he is, with helping crowds of servants. Do more. Repeat the votive offering of My Son. Make ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... avoid the enemy, who they feared would attack them in the night. Captain Lewis endeavoured to assume a cheerfulness he did not feel to prevent the despondency of the savages: after conversing gayly with them he retired to his musquitoe 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 Clarke might have stopped ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... 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 sadly ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... glad and merry; Let the requiems rest silent In the lull of deep thanksgiving. For the wrath of heaven is lifted, Lifted from the rescued city. Gone, the sound of rolling death-cart, Hushed, the ringing, tolling belfry, Still, the bier and gloomy shovel, Still, the idle, listless sexton. Other days of anxious watching Followed, one or two years later; Days when fierce, destructive fevers Darkened many homes with mourning.[2] Yet the ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... night, he was carried upon a bier, hung betwixt two mules, upon which the coffin with the King's body was laid, covered with a covering of cloth of gold, and at every corner of the bier was placed a high crystal lanthorn with lighted tapers in it. He was attended by some grandees, who rode next after him, and other ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... church-aisles Sabbath-days, Where the dusky twilight plays; Round the altar, o'er the bier, Preaching more ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and in order that they and we might learn that He was tied to none. These miracles of raising the dead are three in number. Jairus's daughter is raised from her bed, just having passed away; the widow's son at Nain from his bier, having been for a little longer separated from his body; Lazarus from the grave, having been dead four days. A few minutes, or days, or four thousand years, are one to His power. These three are in some sense the first-fruits of the great ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... here, Slowly and sadly as ye pass along, With your dull march and low funereal song?" "Comrade! we bear a bier! I saw him fall! And, as he lay beneath his steed, one thought, (Strange how the mind such fancy should have wrought!) That, had he died beneath his native skies, Perchance some gentle bride had closed his eyes And wept beside his pall!" ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... are the 'phantasmogenetic agencies' in second sight, a man may acquire the art by magic. A hair rope which has bound a corpse to a bier is wound about him, and then he looks backward 'through his legs' till he sees a funeral. The vision of a seer can be communicated to any one who puts his left foot under the wizard's ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... my blood, his kindred, friends, and neighbors came to assist at the funeral. They dressed the corpse of the woman in her richest robes and all her jewels, as if it had been her wedding-day; then they placed her on an open bier, and began their march to the place of burial. The husband walked first, next to the dead body. When they reached a high mountain, they took up a large stone, which formed the mouth of a deep pit, and let down the body with all its apparel and jewels. Then ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... route." So he confined himself after that to helping me find flowers, and carrying the handkerchief in which I stowed them. Alas! what herbarium of hapless flowers, laid out stark, stiff, and motionless, like beauty on its bier, and with horrible long names written under them, can ever give an idea of the infinite variety and beauty of the floral crown ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... savage beasts his mangled relics tear, Or screaming vultures scatter through the air: Nor could his mother funeral unguents shed; Nor wail'd his father o'er the untimely dead: Nor his sad consort, on the mournful bier, Seal'd his cold eyes, or ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... ranged Cicero, Geoffroy de Vinesauf, and Alain de Lisle. It would require all Cicero's eloquence to persuade us that his comrades in the procession were quite worthy of his company. The Nine Muses follow Petrarch's body; eleven poets, crowned with laurel, support the bier, and Minerva, holding the crown of Petrarch, closes ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... more solemn than their 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, ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... lulled by their liquid echoes, till I lost myself in a deep sleep, which seemed to be pillowed on a sense of being carried on and on into a realm of silence, and then being lifted and carried, as on a living bier, with new senses waking clearer and clearer, as if naked in the delicate air of a new life, and at last waking and finding myself alone in an open space of forest, shadowed by trees of an unknown grace, and lighted by magic vistas where the distance found its last repose on the summits ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... The generosity of his nature and the ideal purity of his love, which that incident shadows, shine out again in his indignation at Joab's murder of Abner, though he was too meek to avenge it. There is no more beautiful picture in his life than that of his following the bier where lay the bloody corpse of the man who had been his enemy ever since he had known him, and sealing the reconciliation which Death ever makes in noble souls, by the pathetic dirge he chanted over Abner's grave. We have a glimpse of his people's unbounded ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... the recovery even of my own composure, was to bid farewell to the sea. Its hateful splash renewed again and again to my sense the death of my sister; its roar was a dirge; in every dark hull that was tossed on its inconstant bosom, I imaged a bier, that would convey to death all who trusted to its treacherous smiles. Farewell to the sea! Come, my Clara, sit beside me in this aerial bark; quickly and gently it cleaves the azure serene, and with soft undulation glides upon ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... that more deaths had occurred. The survivors, to 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, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... mournful cortege enters the town of Ashfield, it passes the home of that fatherless boy, Arthur, for whom Adele had shown such sympathy. The youngster is there swinging upon the gate, his cap gayly set off with feathers, and he looking wonderingly upon the bier. He sees, too, the sad face of Adele, and, by some strange rush of memory, recalls, as he looks on her, the letter which she had given him long ago, and which till then had been forgotten. He runs to his mother: it is in his pocket,—it is in that of some ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... here!" to every mourner's heart The wintry wind seemed whispering round her bier; And when the tomb-door opened, with a start We heard ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... having been said, the bishop himself led the procession down the hollow way and through the chasm in the cliffs seaward, whilst psalms were chanted and incense burnt. Carried in her litter, Petronilla followed the bier; beside her walked Basil and Decius. Only by conscious effort could these two subdue their visages to a becoming sadness; for Basil thought of his marriage, Decius of Rome and his library. Nor did Petronilla wear an aspect of very profound gloom; at moments she forgot herself, and a singular animation ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... bier to man, Coughing a coffin brings, And too much ale will make us ail, As well ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous
... night-time, puffed through the apartment from different apertures. The window was too small for the hole in the side of the house where it hung, and rattled noisily. Everything looked cheerless and dispiriting. Before Ingomar left me, he brought that "b'arskin," and throwing it over the solemn bier which stood in one corner, told me he reckoned that would keep me warm, and then bade me good-night. I undressed myself, the light blowing out in the middle of that ceremony, crawled under the "b'arskin," and tried ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... opera-house, and seldom in the parlors of a hotel. The etiquette of raising the hat on the staircases and in the halls of a hotel as gentlemen pass ladies is much commended. In Europe each man raises his hat as he passes a bier, or if a hearse carrying a dead body passes him. In this country men simply raise their hats as a funeral cort,ge passes into a church, or at the grave. If a gentleman, particularly an elderly one, takes off his hat and stands uncovered in a draughty place, ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... my Soul," came the final leave-taking, and the departure from the church to the grave. Not the least touching of these scenes was the breaking down in grief of the sturdy yeomen of the congregation as they stood around the bier of their dear brother and former pastor, and looked on that manly face and form ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... the heroic Capt. Wise. His funeral here was most impressive, and saddened the countenances of thousands who witnessed the pageant. None of the members of the government were present; but the ladies threw flowers and evergreens upon his bier. He is dead—but history will do him justice; and his example will inspire others with the ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. 14. And He came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And He said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. 15. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And He delivered him ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... when one morning the sun arose, And they bore her bier down the garden-close, It touched her, saying, ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... heroes of Greek tragedy were shattered on the rock of implacable Fate. But the transcendent beauty of the modern drama is lent by the ethical idea of salvation through the love of pure woman—a salvation touching which no one can be in doubt when Tannhauser sinks lifeless beside the bier of the atoning saint, and Venus's cries of woe are swallowed up by the pious canticle of ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Blodgett could have been. He must have been, like the Emperor Titus, the delight of mankind in his day. He was a man, we must surmise, whose charms and virtues were such that his wife, having felt the bliss and privilege of knowing and living with him, registered a vow over his bier that she would devote her future career to the attempt to make others as happy as he had made her; that she would serve others as faithfully and generously as she had served him. It was a lofty and beautiful conception, for she must have perceived that only in that way could she keep his blessed ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... 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 rose in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... Eagle[3] 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
... Maud being besieged here in 1141, and her miraculous flight with three knights, all escaping the eyes of the besiegers by the brightness of their raiment; Maud having just previously escaped from the castle of the Devizes, as a dead corpse, in a funeral hearse or bier. The reader will not be surprised at the decay of the castle, when he is informed that it was in a dilapidated state in the reign of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 12, Issue 328, August 23, 1828 • Various
... 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
... the last P[vr]emysl sovereigns Prague offered the spectacle of a rich and prosperous city, but its brightness was rather that of lights round the bier of some illustrious dead. Many foreigners found themselves attracted to the capital of Bohemia during this period, among them some ardent souls who were to be found doing good, according to their lights, in other ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... place—three buildings in one enclosure of bamboo fences—belongs to the Shingon sect. A small open shrine, to the left of the entrance, first attracts us. It is a dead-house: a Japanese bier is there. But almost opposite the doorway is an altar covered ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... care that there should be no disturbance as the news spread. At early dawn the theatre was full. After a long discussion it was decided that we should go and open the tomb, to see whether the body was still on the bier, or whether we should find the place empty, for the woman had hardly been dead six months. When we opened the vault where all her family was buried, the bodies were seen lying on the other biers; but on the one where ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... check the tear!— There, round departed valour's bier, The sacred drops of kindred virtue[56] shone! Proud monuments of worth! whose base Fame on her starry hill shall place; There to endure, admir'd, sublime! E'en when the mould'ring wing of time Shall scatter to the winds huge pyramids of stone! Oh! gallant soul! farewell! ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier! You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace, Broad for the self-complacent British sneer, His length of shambling ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... performed after a simple fashion. His grave was prepared in a garden at Secundra, about four miles from Agra. The body was placed upon a bier. Selim and his three sons carried it out of the fortress. The young princes, assisted by the officers of the imperial household, carried it to Secundra. Seven days were spent in mourning over the grave. Provisions ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... the drawer and distroyed a gret part of my medicine in such manner that it was past recovery. waited very impatiently for the return of Drewyer he did not arrive. Musquetoes excessively troublesome insomuch that without the protection of my musquetoe bier I should have found it impossible to wright a moment. the buffaloe are leaving us fast and passing on to the S. East. killed a buffaloe picker a ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... they to a deep porch, where they quenched all the torches save one, and entered a great hall through it, David and two other tall young men going first, and Robert Maisey going beside the bier. The said hall was lighted with candles, but not very brightly, save at the upper end; but amidmost a flickering heap of logs sent a thin line of blue smoke up to the luffer. There were some sixty folk in the hall, scattered ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... Augustins, and said that he had been sent by the Bishop to ask if I cared to witness the lying-in-state from some private vantage-ground. I went to the cathedral, and the Bishop himself escorted me to the organ-loft, whence I could see the silent crowds move slowly in pairs past Alresca's bier, which lay in the chancel. It was an impressive sight, and one which ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... grave-digger is waiting until the cords are fastened round the bier. But, see, a woman has just entered the ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... saved the situation. He saved it, undisguisedly, for his own sake; for he had no zest for helping to carry a bier over the Folgefond. They made a litter of alpen-stocks and the mackintosh, and so between them carried Urquhart down the mountain. No need to dwell on it. They reached the hotel at Odde about midnight, but halfway ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... The weiss bier of Berlin, served in wide goblets, is rather going out of fashion. It often is drunk ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... year! The track behind thee is with glory crowned; The turf where thou hast trod is holy ground. Pass proudly to thy bier! ...
— Poems • Mary Baker Eddy
... was nothing but a heaving ship on the immensity of mid-ocean, an open gangway, a figure shrouded in folds of a Flag, and a small knot of bare-headed men, bent and swaying to meet the lurches of the vessel, grouped about the simple bier. The wind had increased and there was an ominous harping among the backstays. The ship was heaving unsteadily, and it was with difficulty we could keep a balance on the wet, sloping deck. Overhead the sky was black with the wrack of hurrying clouds, and the sullen ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... the "weeny baby" on her arm lay on a long carpenter's bench, her earthly journey over, and when Rebecca stole in and placed the flowery garland all along the edge of the rude bier, death suddenly took on a more gracious and benign aspect. It was only a child's sympathy and intuition that softened the rigors of the sad moment, but poor, wild Sal Winslow, in her frame of daisies, looked as if she were missed a little by an unfriendly world; while the weeny baby, whose heart ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of the Tsar, nothing was more touching than the placing of a wreath upon his bier by a deputation of peasants. It can be best described in their own words. The Emperor was lying in the Cathedral wrapped in a robe of ermine, beneath a canopy of gold and silver cloth lined with ermine. "At last we were inside the church," says the narrative. "We all dropped on our ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various
... country deplores. But where is the iron-bound prisoner? Where? For the red eye of battle is shut in despair. Say, mounts he the ocean-wave, banished, forlorn, Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn? Ah, no! for a darker departure is near,— The war drum is muffled, and black is the bier; His death bell is tolling! Oh, mercy! dispel Yon sight that it freezes my spirit to tell! Life flutters convulsed in his quivering limbs, And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims; Accursed be the faggots that blaze at his feet, Where ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... for sympathy. I shall go mad. I saw my baby die And all around me 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 ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... sad, supremely mournful. What the deuce ailed 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
... remains of its lord. The cold February sleet pattered fitfully against the narrow panes; and the shivering mourners muffled themselves in their dark hoods, while they knelt devoutly on the hard bare pavement of the chapel. Oliver de Worsthorn, the old seneschal, knelt at the foot of the bier; his white locks covered his thin features like a veil, hiding their intense and heart-withering expression. He felt without a stay or helper in his last hours—a sapless, worthless stem ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... great aught foul mean seam moan knot rap bee wrap not 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 birth horde aisle ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... a custom of the Egyptians, during or after their repasts, to introduce a wooden image of Osiris, from one foot and a half to three feet in height, in the form of a human mummy, standing erect, or lying on a bier, and to show it to each of the guests, warning him of his mortality, and the transitory nature of human pleasures. He was reminded that some day he would be like that figure; that men ought "to love ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... feathery ferns, casting their silent shadows on the checkerberry leaves, and all those sweet, wild, nameless, half-mossy things, that live in the gloom of forests, and are only desecrated when brought to scientific light, laid out and stretched on a botanic bier. Sweet old forest days!—when blue jay, and yellow hammer, and bobalink made his leaves merry, and summer was a long opera of such music as Mozart dimly dreamed. But then came human kind bustling beneath; wondering, fussing, ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... sottish husband, who had married her principally for the sake of John Ferrier's property, did not affect any great grief at his bereavement; but his other wives mourned over her, and sat up with her the night before the burial, as is the Mormon custom. They were grouped round the bier in the early hours of the morning, when, to their inexpressible fear and astonishment, the door was flung open, and a savage-looking, weather-beaten man in tattered garments strode into the room. Without ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... cloth of gold which swept the floor, and was bordered with ermine. He wore his ducal robes, with a coronet, and the great collar of St. Michael; and had his white-gloved hands crossed upon his breast. At the foot of the bier stood a small table upon which was a massive silver crucifix; and near it a second supporting a vase of holy water. In this state the deceased Duke remained during eight days; the officers of his household waiting upon him in the same manner, and with the same ceremonies ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... into my room, lay down upon her bier, and awaited the resurrection. I sat and awaited mine, panting to untwine from my heart the cold death-worm that twisted around it, yet picturing to myself the glow of love on the averted face of the ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... Ahab was so great that the memory of it reached posterity. (44) The funeral procession was unusually impressive; no less than thirty-six thousand warriors, their shoulders bared, marched before his bier. (45) Ahab is one of the few in Israel who have no portion in the world to come. (46) He dwells in the fifth division of the nether world, which is under the supervision of the angel Oniel. However, he is exempt from the tortures inflicted ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... truth fades; stars fall from Heaven; Human are the great whom we revere: No true crown of honour can be given, Till we place it on a funeral bier. ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... dumb is he who waked the world to speak, And voiceless hangs the world beside his bier, Our words are sobs, our cry or praise a tear: We are the smitten mortal, we the weak. We see a spirit on earth's loftiest peak Shine, and wing hence the way he makes more clear: See a great Tree of Life that never sere Dropped leaf for aught that ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... brief, though love be long The altar and the bier, The burial hymn and bridal song, Were both ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... herself to the errors of life, The deceptions of youth, and borne down by the strife And the tumult of passion; the tremulous toy Of each transient emotion of grief or of joy. But to watch her pronounce the death-warrant of all The illusions of life—lift, unflinching, the pall From the bier of the dead Past—that woman so fair, And so young, yet her own self-survivor; who there Traced her life's epitaph with a finger so cold! 'Twas a picture that pain'd his self-love to behold. He himself knew—none better—the things to be said Upon subjects like this. Yet he bow'd down his head: And ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... which nature reverently folds like a velvet pall over the bier of the pale, dead day, ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... Patsy had tossed about and moaned with the racking pain of it, raving deliriously through her score or more of roles. She had gone dancing off with the Faery Child to the Land of Heart's Desire; she had sat beside the bier in "The Riders to the Sea"; she had laughed through "The Full o' Moon," and played the Fool while the Wise Man died. The nurses and doctors had listened with open-eyed wonder and secret enjoyment; she had allowed them to peep into a new world too full of charm and ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... Thrice Achilles shouted mightily, and thrice 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
... 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! ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... cities wail its stroke; Come in consumption's ghastly form, The earthquake shock, the ocean-storm; Come when the heart beats high and warm, With banquet-song, and dance, and wine: And thou art terrible—the tear, The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier; And all we know, or dream, or ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... out of the moon's light and the sun's Seven old sisters wind the threads of the long lived ones, Land-of-the-Tower, where Aengus has thrown the gates apart, And Wood-of-Wonders, where one kills an ox at dawn To find it when night falls laid on a golden bier: Therein are many queens like Branwen, and Guinivere; And Niam, and Laban, and Fand, who could change to an otter or fawn And the wood-woman whose lover was changed to a blue-eyed hawk; And whether I go in my dreams by woodland, or dun, or shore, Or on the unpeopled waves with kings to pull at ...
— In The Seven Woods - Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish Heroic Age • William Butler (W.B.) Yeats
... 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
... at himself in the Stygian waters. His Naiad sisters lamented him, and laid their hair,[77] cut off, over their brother; the Dryads, too, lamented him, {and} Echo resounded to their lamentations. And now they were preparing the funeral pile, and the shaken torches, and the bier. The body was nowhere {to be found}. Instead of his body, they found a yellow flower, with white leaves encompassing it ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... stove and darted through, while sparks of fire flew from its eyes and mouth. As soon as the cat had disappeared, four tall men entered, clad in long white coats, and wearing caps of flame-colour, which shone so brightly that the room became as bright as day. The men carried a bier on their shoulders, and a coffin stood upon it, but still the bold barn-keeper did not feel the least bit afraid. The men set the coffin on the ground without speaking a word, and then one after another went out at the door, and closed it behind them. The cat whined ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... having been seized with a violent fever, was thought to be dead. They washed him, clothed him, laid him on a bier, and passed the night in prayer by him: the next morning he was seen to move; he appeared to awake from a deep sleep, opened his eyes, and raising his hand towards heaven said, "Ah! Lord, why hast thou sent me ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... Immortal names—Lear, Hamlet, Hal, Macbeth, And thro the night I heard the rushing breath Of ghost and witch and fool go whirling by. I followed them, under the phantom sphere Of the pale moon, along the Avon's near And nimbused flowing, followed to his bier— Who had evoked them first with mighty eye. And as I gazed upon the peaceful spire That points above earth's most immortal dust, I could have asked God for His starry Lyre Out of the skies to play my praise upon. ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... 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
... planed under Malcolm's occasional direction. He was building a barge like the one described in Tennyson's poem of the Lily Maid of Astolat. From time to time, Lloyd, who was to personate Elaine, was called to stretch herself out on the black bier in the centre, to see if it was long enough or high enough or wide enough, before the final nails were ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... star. It is a yellow star, and is approaching the earth at the rate of twelve miles per second. It culminates April 21st. The Arabs called the four stars in the Dipper the "bier." ...
— A Field Book of the Stars • William Tyler Olcott
... of the pipkins and pie-pans were screaming 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 ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... The Comic Muse, long sick, is now a-dying! 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 up. We now and ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... Commentaries, 'all the people of the city, not only Christians, but Hindus and Moors [Muhammadans], who filled the streets, demonstrating by the profusion of their tears the great sorrow they felt at his death. As for the Hindus, when they beheld his body stretched upon the bier, with his long beard reaching down to his waist, and his eyes half open, they declared, after their heathen notions, that it could not be that he was dead, {143} but that God had need of him for some war, and had therefore ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens |
