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Vespers

noun
1.
The sixth of the seven canonical hours of the divine office; early evening; now often made a public service on Sundays.  Synonym: evensong.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Vespers" Quotes from Famous Books



... that, A fresh crop of feathers came thick as a mat! His tail waggled more even than before; But no longer it wagged with an impudent air, No longer he perched on the Cardinal's chair. He hopped now about with a gait devout; At matins, at vespers, he never was out; And, so far from any more pilfering deeds, He always seemed telling the Confessor's beads. If any one lied, or if any one swore, Or slumbered in prayer-time and happened to snore, That ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... distributed for various purposes in the same manner as in a convent; and the most part of it that was not taken up by military duties, was spent in prayers and other devotional exercises. Orations and vespers were performed in public—every one, both soldiers and citizens, taking part; and in this remote village, cut off from all communication with the world, amidst a population little used to the pleasures of life, hourly prayers were offered up with that fervour ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... Property, he contends. Likewise it is never cold. The flowers, he says, come out, delighting to grow there; it is like Paradise this morning; it is like the Garden of Eden. He is a little fanciful in his language: smilingly observing of Madame Loyal, when she is absent at vespers, that she is 'gone to her salvation' - allee a son salut. He has a great enjoyment of tobacco, but nothing would induce him to continue smoking face to face with a lady. His short black pipe immediately goes into his breast ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... Protestant princes as a gentleman volunteer in France, and he took part in the famous battle of Jarnac. He is supposed to have fought in France for six years. From early youth his mind was "bent on military glory," and always in opposition to Spain. His escape from the bloody Vespers of Saint Bartholomew had given him a deep distrust of the policy of Rome. The Spaniard had "abused and tormented" the wretched inhabitants of Flanders. Sir Walter Raleigh dreamed that by the combination in arms of England, France, and the Low Countries, the Spaniards "might not ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... discussed. Henry boasted to the Spanish ambassador that he would lose no time over Italy; that he would breakfast at Milan, hear mass at Rome, and dine at Naples. "Then," said the Spaniard, "you will be in time for vespers in Sicily." Before starting for his expedition Henry had his queen crowned, that she might act as regent in his absence. On his way to arrange the ceremony of her entrance into Paris he met his death. Rumours of a plot had reached him and made him nervous. While the conspirators ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... that he regarded her as his wife. She reproached him with his duplicity and the imposition he had practised on her, and told him she would have no more to say to him. This took place in St. Peter's one Friday at vespers. Soon after they went to Naples, where Swift followed, and wrote to her mother saying he had married her daughter, and asking her forgiveness; that she might fancy the marriage was not valid, but she would find it was, having been celebrated ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... says of "bobolinkum" is just as true of bunting—"He runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air." As the sun went down behind the snow-clad mountains, a half dozen or more of the buntings rolled up the full tide of song, and I left them to their vespers and trudged back to the village, satisfied with the acquirements of this red-letter day in my ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... with swift motions. It was necessary to work harder than usual to-day, to get rid of the ache to be away doing something else. She set the separator whirling, giving out its droning song of plenty—the farm Matins and Vespers. ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith

... mostly of Spanish origin; consequently, mostly Roman Catholics; and a recent traveller says that from the moment of his arrival, he was struck with the devout appearance of the city of Guatemala. At matins and vespers, the churches were all open, and the people, particularly the women, went regularly to prayers. Every house had its figure of the Virgin, the Saviour, or some tutelary saint, and on the door were billets of paper with prayers. You will ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... wretched priest for the many insults he had put upon him. Hereupon four of his domestics, in hopes to gain favour, set out immediately for Canterbury, and beat out Thomas's brains with clubs, as he was saying vespers in his own cathedral, in so cruel a manner, that the altar was covered with blood. King Henry subdued Ireland, and died there in 1189, in the 34th ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown

... afternoon I went to the parish church of Couilly, whilst vespers were going on. If the little Protestant assemblage I had just before witnessed was touching, this was almost painful, and might have afforded an artist an admirable subject for a picture. Sitting on a high stool, with his back to the congregation, consisting of three old women, was the priest, ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... And about forty-five years since, I rang all through one Sunday in June, when there was such a battle going on in the corn-fields there, as none of you others ever heard tolled of. Yes, from morning service until after vespers, the French and English were all at it, ding-dong." And then calls of business intervening, the bells have to give up their private jangle, resume their professional duty, and sing their hourly chorus ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... her. She was a virtual Prisoner, free only in name. And the vigilance of the Terrorists obsessed her. She found a day gone, and no plan made. She had come here to think, and consecutive thought was impossible. She went to vespers at the church, and sat huddled in a corner. She suspected every eye that turned on her in frank curiosity. When, during the "Salve Regina," the fathers, followed by their pupils, went slowly down the aisle, in reverent procession between rows of Pilgrims, she saw in their habits only a grim reminder ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Genseric, Goths under Theodoric, Byzantines under Belisarius, Saracens from Asia Minor, Normans under Robert Guiscard, German emperors of the thirteenth century, French Angevine princes (in whose time came the Sicilian Vespers), Spaniards of the house of Aragon, French under Napoleon, Austrians of the nineteenth century, and then—that glorious day when Garibaldi transferred it ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various

... Parma, where he acquired much honor in the space of five or six months; during which time he did not revisit his home. At the end of this period he went to see his mother at Pau. He made his reverence to the Queen of Navarre as she returned from vespers; and she, who was the best princess in the world, received him cordially, and taking his hand, led him about the church for an hour or two. She demanded news regarding the wars of Piedmont and Italy, and many other particulars, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... have tamed her wild blood? Would her nature have still asserted itself under the cap of the sister? would she have led a revolt against authority within the church as she did without? Are there any such fierce, tumultuous natures as hers to-day kneeling on stony cloister floors? Can matins and vespers, the odors of incense, and the sacred ceremonial of the church fill up for an ardent nature all that the service of the world supplies? We shall never know; for the real history of a faithful daughter of the church will never be written. The story of the three years of ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... In the same city, and at the same hour, in the year 1348, this luminary disappeared from our world. I was then at Verona, ignorant of my wretched situation. Her chaste and beautiful body was buried the same day, after vespers, in the church of the Cordeliers. Her soul returned to its native mansion in heaven. I have written this with a pleasure mixed with bitterness, to retrace the melancholy remembrance of 'MY GREAT LOSS.' This loss convinces me that I have nothing now left worth ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... is appropriate that the service of the Church be observed in the same way by all, it is to be desired that it be done so everywhere. After the antiphones the collects shall be said in order by the bishops and presbyters, and the hymns of Matins and Vespers be sung daily; and at the conclusion of the mass of Matins and Vespers,(266) after the hymns a chapter of the Psalms shall be read, and the people who are gathered shall, after the prayer, be dismissed with a benediction of the ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... sanctify one closing day, That frail Mortality may see— What is?—ah no, but what can be! Time was when field and watery cove With modulated echoes rang, While choirs of fervent angels sang Their vespers in the grove; Or, crowning, star-like, each some sovereign height, Warbled, for heaven above and earth below, Strains suitable to both.—Such holy rite, Methinks, if audibly repeated now From hill or valley ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... the petard to tear them. The ramparts are all filled with men and women, With peaceful men and women, that send onwards. Kisses and welcomings upon the air, Which they make breezy with affectionate gestures. From all the towers rings out the merry peal, The joyous vespers of a bloody day. O happy man, O fortunate! for whom The well-known door, the faithful arms are open, The faithful tender arms with ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... made excellent songs, it was a matter of common report. Yet but once in their close friendship did the Queen command him to make a song for her. This had been at Dover, about vespers, in the starved and tiny garden overlooking the English Channel, upon which her apartments faced; and the priest had fingered his lute for an appreciable while before he sang, more harshly ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... a better memory, as a rule, and a more active brain, than other people. The shoemaker, Escarboeuf, used to gather his neighbors and trusty comrades about him now and then at the hour of vespers. He remembered exactly what the doctor had said on the discovery of the corpse; he was standing close by and had heard every syllable. "It almost looks as if the man had been murdered;" those were the astonished words of the doctor ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... the northland sealed, of the blue that shines across the earth revealed; unto all you souls that pray. Do you hear my voice in harmonies as the vespers play? As the sighing winds pass over the mountains most assuredly have you been, reclaimed by me. I have a torchlight descending from my father's throne. I who bare the ...
— The Secret of the Creation • Howard D. Pollyen

... because you are not willing. You have allowed yourself to sink into a sinful and dangerous lethargy of mind and body in which you have brooded morbidly over your afflictions. You must do so no longer. You must rouse yourself from this moment. You must go with us to-night to vespers. To-morrow morning you will attend high mass. A fellow-countryman of yours, Father F——, an Oratorian priest from Norwood, England, will preach. He will do you good. Since the days of St. John, the beloved disciple, no wiser, more loving, or more eloquent soul ever ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... he had gone the deep drum—a hollow instrument of wood shaped like a fish—was beaten, and the priests gathered to vespers, dressed in many-coloured garments of silk; and, as evening fell, they intoned a sweet ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... bruised and dripping grass Into the heated city. But he stood, Disconsolate with thoughts of fate and sin, Still wrestling with his soul to win it back From her who claimed it to eternity. Then on the delicate air there came to him The intonation of the minster bells, Chiming the vespers, musical and faint. He knew not what of dear and beautiful There was in those familiar peals, that spake Of his first boyhood and his innocence, Leading him back, with gracious influence, To pleasant thoughts and tender memories, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... regular authorities of the country had taken cognizance of the murder; but disappearing, the young man, to all external appearance, was left in the solitary possession of the pass. Even the dogs had been kennelled, and the pious monks were healthfully occupied in the religious offices of the vespers. ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... thy chest will broaden and be larger by two good inches ere we see chalk cliffs and English waters. Thou wilt open like a rose to the sunshine of the outer world. But, we are anticipating—let us speak of the present. To-night we go to vespers for the last time, and thou must bid thy friends adieu before I tuck thee in thy cot as we arise and are off before day-dawn. Let thy farewells be briefly spoken as if thou wert to be gone but a day. 'Twas thy father's wish thou shouldst not grieve ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... endured." Every Christian must needs be assured that the one sacrifice of Christ, being perfect, demands no repetition. Still the world has long been, and now is, flooded with wretched sacrificing priests, who yet proclaim themselves liars, inasmuch as they chant every Sunday in their vespers, that Christ is a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec. Wherefore not only every man of sound understanding, but "they themselves, in spite of themselves, must admit that the Pope and all his brood of cardinals, bishops, monks, and canting ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... remain. The money which I retained for my own exigencies enabled me to make friends with the porter, and I obtained egress or ingress at any hour. I was a proficient on the guitar; and incongruous as it may appear with my monastic vows, I often hastened from the service at vespers to perform in a serenade to some fair senhora, whose inamorata required the powers of my voice to ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... Next day, at vespers, Jasper anxiously fixed his gaze on the stained-glass window—again a glow came from it, and as he moved the head seemed to incline itself; but now Jasper saw it was only the sun shining through the window—only the sun! Then the heaviness descended into the deepest parts ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham

... certain a veritable fay, and that he would yet gain the fief. The king was too courteous and gallant a knight to refuse this request, and even made a pretty and right royal speech, intimating his desire to lose the wager. Then, after vespers, the guard passed fresh and warm into the king's chamber, a lady most dazzlingly white—most delicately wanton, with long tresses and velvet hands, filling out her dress at the least movement, for she was gracefully ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac

... one another, for it was certain that all this reading would last till the meal must be left for vespers. ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... from the green slope, in front of the edifice, and the rich shores, hung with woods and pastures, that extended on either hand. But her thoughts were now occupied by one sad idea, and the features of nature were to her colourless and without form. The bell for vespers struck, as she passed the ancient gate of the convent, and seemed the funereal note for St. Aubert. Little incidents affect a mind, enervated by sorrow; Emily struggled against the sickening faintness, that came over her, and was led into the presence of the abbess, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind. But my original plan was circumscribed to the decay of the city, rather than of the empire: and, tho my reading and reflections began to point toward ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... his horse, rode into the cathedral town—distant eight miles—and arranged with the organist for himself, four leading boys, and three lay clerks. He was to send a carriage in for them after the morning service, and return them in good time for vespers. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... in these qualifications you are excelled by the players of Amsterdam. Yet one of your graciosos I cannot admire, in all the characters he assumes. His utterance is a continual sing-song, like the chanting of vespers; and his action resembles that of heaving ballast into the hold of a ship. In his outward deportment he seems to have confounded the ideas of insolence and the dignity of mien; acts the crafty cool, designing ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... at Reischach, the church-bell ringing for vespers, which begin at one o'clock. We wear bouquets of carnations and rosemary, presented to us by the family at the Hof, as correct decorations for a festival. And Anton!—how to present him to you as he deserves to be presented? His truthful, guileless face is his best ornament: nevertheless, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... mistily off in the north. And the city is in keeping with its setting. The quaint, mysterious houses, inclosing sunny gardens and tree-planted court-yards; the great cathedral where, in the dusk of evening, at vespers, one may see each night new wonders, Rembrandt-like, beautiful, in light and shade; the church of St. Francis, and the old ruined church beside it—built, first of all, in honor of the saint who had guided the Viceroy's ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various

... great anniversary," said Pere Simeon, sipping his wine, "I thought out my plan. There would be masses, vespers, benedictions, litanies, and choirs. But my mind was set upon a representation of the Maid as she rode into Rheims to crown the king after her victories. She was, you will remember, clothed all in white armor and rode ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... say the Bretons. First on the Eve of All Souls' comes the religious service, "black vespers." The blessedness of death is praised, the sorrows and shortness of life dwelt upon. After a common prayer all go out to the cemetery to pray separately, each by the graves of his kin, or to the "place of bones," where the remains of those long dead are thrown all together in one tomb. They ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley

... were growing somewhat thinner, and lights began to twinkle here and there, showing that some village was nigh at hand. A bell for vespers began to ring forth, and the traveller was glad enough to think his toilsome journey nearly at an end. Hardy as he was, and well inured to fatigues and hardship of all kinds, he was growing exhausted from his ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green

... on Saturday last that the Kaiser and Kaiserinn, returning from Karlsbad, illuminated Prag with their serene presence; "attended high-mass, vespers," and a good deal of other worship, as the meagre old Newspapers report for us, on that and the Sunday following. And then, "on Monday, at six in the morning," both the Majesties left Prag, for a place called Chlumetz, southwestward thirty miles off, in the Elbe region, where they have a pretty ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... many Catholics in the county—some on your ranch. And so few come to the Mission. At High Mass on Sundays, there are a few—Mexicans and Spaniards from Guadalajara mostly; but weekdays, for matins, vespers, and the like, I often say the offices to an empty church—'the voice of one crying in the wilderness.' You Americans are not good churchmen. Sundays you sleep—you read ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... to sights and sounds. In the wilderness of Zin, between Palestine and the Red Sea, a section of the desert well known in these days to our own countrymen, bells are heard daily pealing for matins, or for vespers, from some phantom convent that no search of Christian or of Bedouin Arab has ever been able to discover. These bells have sounded since the Crusades. Other sounds, trumpets, the Alala of armies, &c., are heard in other regions of the Desert. Forms, also, are seen ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... interview he had requested. In any case, John Mauprat could not hope to impose upon me, and I wished to do all in my power to prevent him from pestering my great-uncle's last days with his intrigues. Accordingly, the very next day I betook myself to the town, where I arrived towards the end of Vespers. I rang, not without emotion, at ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... while pretending submission, in order to throw dust in the eyes of the too confiding Danes, brought up their forces and commenced fighting anew. "It was the eve of St. Vitus, and the Danes were singing Vespers in camp, when suddenly a wild howl rang through the summer evening, and the heathens poured out of the woods, attacked the surprised Danes on all sides, and quickly thinned their ranks. The Danes began to waver, but the Prince of Rugen, who was stationed on the hill, had time to rally his followers ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson

... in the citadel, even the sick in the hospitals, fell victims to the craving for revenge for the humiliations and exactions of the last seven months.[76] Such was Easter-tide at Verona—les Paques veronaises—an event that recalls the Sicilian Vespers of Palermo in its blind ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... was Sunday, and I went to hear vespers at Notre Dame. How I love the old gothic cathedrals, that seem to remove one at once from this work-day world—the fanes wherein the very air seems redolent of devotion, and peopled with phantoms of the past! 'Spite of all disparagement, there is something grand and solemn about them. ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham

... Vieillards' (The School of Age), first performed by the great artists Mademoiselle Mars and Talma; and 'Don Juan d'Autriche' (Don John of Austria), a prose comedy. Other dramas of his—'Marino Faliero,' 'Les Vepres Siciliennes' (The Sicilian Vespers), 'Louis XI.,' 'Les Enfants d'Edouard' (The Children of Edward), and 'La Fille du Cid' (The Daughter of the Cid)—are still read with admiration, or acted to applauding spectators. A pure disciple of Racine at first, Delavigne deftly managed to adopt some innovations of the romanticist ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... expected, he repeated his questions with a certain show of impatience. At this period of isolation, M. Dablin was also his factotum and his mentor. Balzac commissioned him to buy a Bible, carefully specifying that the text must be in French as well as Latin; he wished to read the Sicilian Vespers; he felt it his duty, as a simple soldier in the ranks of literature, to attend a performance of Cinna, by the great General Corneille, from the safe seclusion of a screened box, and he would be glad to see Girodet's Endymion at the Exposition, "some morning when there is no one else there," in ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet

... struck home. 'And if you must try your hand at composition,' continued Reutter in a somewhat kinder tone than before, as he observed the tears spring to the boy's eyes, 'let me advise you to write variations on the motets and vespers which are played in the church.' With this parting piece of counsel he passed on, leaving poor Haydn as much in the dark as before with regard to how he ought to proceed. 'If only he would instruct me in counterpoint, ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham

... sharp chip! chip! is characteristic of the "chippy," but the sweet, dripping song of the field sparrow is charming. No elaborate performance this, but a succession of sweet, high notes, accelerating toward the end, like a coin of silver settling to rest on a marble table—a simple, chaste vespers which rises to the setting sun and endears the ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe

... magnificently fitted for life's finer offices, ah, the pity of it, the pity of it!... But let me set down the whole sad story as it dawned upon me this afternoon in that unearthly church. I was later than the hour appointed; vespers were over and a server, taper in hand, was gradually transforming the gloom of the high altar into a blaze of light. With a strange sense of completion I took my place next to the chair by which Lorimer, ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al

... bishops and abbes of high lineage, gallant, jovial, and given to carousing on occasion; and more than once the good and devout women of Saint Germain d' Auxerre, when passing at night beneath the brightly illuminated windows of Bourbon, had been scandalized to hear the same voices which had intoned vespers for them during the day carolling, to the clinking of glasses, the bacchic proverb of Benedict XII., that pope who had added a third crown ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... some shattered church were calling to vespers, the sun was sinking behind the flaming autumn woods, as once more I entered the St. Louis Gate, with the grenadiers and a detachment of artillery, the British colours hoisted on a gun-carriage. Till this hour I ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... it aroused unwelcome thoughts; while he was pondering, he heard a hum of music behind the arras; he put the robe down, and stepped through the hangings, and stood awhile in the little oriel that looked down into the church. Vespers were proceeding; he saw the holy lights dimly through the dusty panes, and heard the low preluding of the organ; then, solemn and slow, rose the sound of a chanted psalm on the air; he carefully unfastened the casement which ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Convent invited all who were there present to be their guests, giving a right solemn feast to all; and the chief persons dined with the Convent in the Refectory. And that same day in the evening, after vespers, when it was about four o'clock, the workmen had removed the stone lions, and placed the tomb upon them, and laid the lid of the tomb hard by, and made all ready to fasten it down, so soon as the holy body ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... were once pretty, too, but it is very difficult to believe so), sit on the footway leaning against house walls. Everybody who has come for water to the fountain, stays there, and seems incapable of any such energetic idea as going home. Vespers are over, though not so long but that I can smell the heavy resinous incense as I pass the church. No man seems to be at work, save the coppersmith. In an Italian town he is always at work, and always thumping in ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... watch. He had told his thought to the abbot, who bid him come to him the moment he hit the truth; and the next day, which was a Sunday, he stood in the path when the abbot and the Brothers were coming from vespers, with their white habits upon them, and took the abbot by the habit and said, 'The beggar is of the greatest of saints and of the workers of miracle. I followed Olioll but now, and by his slow steps and his bent head I ...
— The Secret Rose • W. B. Yeats

... Nothing can be conceived more strongly calculated to impress the feelings of a romantic girl, than the poetic attractions which are thrown around the Roman Catholic religion by nuns, and cloisters, and dimly-lighted chapels, and faintly-burning tapers, and matins, and vespers, and midnight dirges. Jane had just the spirit to be most deeply captivated by such enchantments. She reveled in those imaginings which clustered in the dim shades of the cloister, in an ecstasy of luxurious enjoyment. The ordinary motives which ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... high-road, and he asked us if we should like to see the church. It was about three o'clock, and in the low porch the cure was ringing the bell for vespers. We pushed open the inner doors and went in. The church was without aisles, and down the nave stood four rows of wooden cots with brown blankets. In almost every one lay a soldier—the doctor's "worst ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton

... of the elders are to be for ever visited on those who are not even their children! Should the first act of liberated Greece be to recommence the Trojan war? Are the French never to forget the Sicilian Vespers; or the Americans the long war waged against their liberties? Is any rule wise, which may set the Irish to recollect what ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... About the hour of vespers, Bibboni determined to seek better refuge. Followed at a discreet distance by Bebo, he first called at their lodgings and ordered supper. Two priests came in and fell into conversation with them. But something in the behaviour of one of these good men roused his suspicions. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... "warned off." By the Lateran Council of 1215 the publication of banns was made compulsory on all Christendom. In early times it was usual for the priest to betroth the pair formally in the name of the Blessed Trinity; and sometimes the banns were published at vespers, sometimes during mass. In the United Kingdom, under the canon law and by statute, banns are the normal preliminary to marriage; but a marriage may also be solemnized without the publication of banns, by obtaining a licence or a registrar's certificate. In America there is no statutory requirement; ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... about, drinking, enjoying themselves, love-making, singing Alleluia and applauding the music with which they were being regaled. The kitchen performed miracles, the Offices said were fine rich pots-full, the Matins sweet little hams, the Vespers luscious mouthful, and the Lauhes delicate sweetmeats, and after their little carouses, these brave priests were silent, their pages diced upon the stairs, their mules stamped restively in the streets; everything went well—but faith and religion was there. That is how it came to pass the ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac

... King: "Sire, I give you my word that my lord of Savoy wishes to give you a page who rides his chestnut better than any boy I ever saw, and he cannot be more than fourteen, although his horsemanship is as good as that of a man of thirty. If it pleases you to go and hear vespers at Ainay you will have your pastime in the fields there afterwards." "By my faith," cried the King, "I do wish it!" and he heard the whole story of this wonderful boy ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare

... may not dally longer. Order up the horses, Ratcliffe, and let the route be sounded; we must be at Northampton ere the vespers chime." ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... room where the family was waiting for them for dinner. In the afternoon he slept for weariness, and only awoke at twilight, when six o'clock had already struck. He went to find Vera, but Marina told him she had gone to vespers, she did not know whether in the village church on the hill or in the church on the outskirts of the town. He went to the town church first, and after studying the faces of all the old women assembled there, he climbed the hill to the village church. Old people stood in the corners and by the ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov

... sing Gounod's "Ava Maria" and Rossini's "Stabat Mater," and, fortunately, drown the squeaky tones of the old organ. A choir of men and boys accompanies them in "The Inflammatus," where the high notes of M.'s tearful voice are almost supernatural. People swarm to the Laterano on Saturday to hear the Vespers, which are especially fine. After the solo is finished, the priests begin their monotonous Gregorian chants, and at the end of those they slap-bang their prayer-books on the wooden benches on which ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone

... In July Italy is not a land of charms to an Englishman. Poor Stanbury did wander into the cathedral, and finding it the coolest place in the town, went to sleep on a stone step. He was awoke by the voice of the priests as they began to chant the vespers. The good-natured Italians had let him sleep, and would have let him sleep till the doors were closed for the night. At five he dined with Mrs. Trevelyan, and then endeavoured to while away the evening thinking of Nora with a pipe in his mouth. He was standing in ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... was worn out and scarcely mistress of herself. The light was falling, and with it some rain. The reek of the kennels and the close air from the houses seemed to stifle us. The bell at the church behind us was jangling out vespers. A few people, attracted by the sight of our horses standing before the inn, had gathered round and were ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... died with the violence. This priest was rich, and possessed great authority; he was a reprobate, and, like the priesthood, he abstained from marriage, to enjoy the more a debauched and licentious life. The Sunday after the death of queen Mary, he was revelling with one of his concubines, before vespers; he then went to church, administered baptism, and in his return to his lascivious pastime, he was smitten by the hand of God. Without a moment given for repentance, he fell to the ground, and a groan was the only articulation permitted him. In him we may behold the difference ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... Dionis and his clerk, met again in the square, with face rather flushed from their breakfast, just as vespers were over. As the notary predicted, the Abbe Chaperon had Madame de Portenduere ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac

... his favorite chair. The thrushes were singing vespers. The pure air was faintly and ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham

... when you are gone, and I am alone, I should like to pray at the time of vespers. And it is not so dark as you think. Besides, this will be the test of the fortune I have just told you. If it's true that you have the lucky hand for finding you will put it on the rosary in an instant. That will ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... children, more work till dinner at one, and again work. This she was apt to do in a sentinel-guarded arbor to which she would go from the palace, carrying despatches and papers in a tray slung by a cord round her neck. Vespers at six, an evening card-party, supper, a walk at eight, and then sleep. After the death of Francis she made her son Joseph joint-ruler, but soon found herself obliged to limit his authority to the care of the army. At fifty the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... the past year, and enclosing a chapel and a house. Near by, they had cleared a large tract of land, and sown it with wheat, Indian corn, peas, and other crops. The new-comers were graciously received, and invited to vespers in the chapel; but they very soon found La Salle's prediction made good, and saw that the Jesuit fathers wanted no help from St. Sulpice. Galinee, on his part, takes occasion to remark that, though ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... It was after vespers, and Thomas Bodza was taking a walk across the fields. This was his usual promenade. Sometimes he went as far as the boundaries of the neighbouring village with a little book under his arm which he perused with ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... la Porte, son of the Marquis de la Meilleraye, one of the most powerful nobles in France. But alas for his scheming! Armande's heart had already been caught while Marie was reciting her matins and vespers: He had lost it utterly to her beautiful sister, Hortense; he vowed that he would marry no other, and that if Hortense could not be his wife he would prefer to die. Thus Marie was rescued from a union which brought her sister so much misery in later years, and for a time she was condemned to spend ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... out immediately for the Golden River. How to get the holy water, was the question. He went to the priest, but the priest could not give any holy water to so abandoned a character. So Hans went to vespers in the evening for the first time in his life, and, under pretence of crossing himself, stole a cupful, and returned home ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... uncomfortable impression—yet it was very strong upon him—and he breathed a sigh of intense relief when he heard the soft melody of the organ once more, and saw the oaken doors of the grotto swing wide open to admit a flood of cheerful light from the outer passage. The vespers were over,—the monks rose and paced forth two by two, not with bent heads and downcast eyes as though affecting an abased humility, but with the free and stately bearing of kings returning from some high conquest. Drawing ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... honour for one day. Let who is to be our first chief be at the election of us all. For who shall follow, be it he or she whom it shall please the governor of the day to appoint, whenas the hour of vespers draweth near, and let each in turn, at his or her discretion, order and dispose of the place and manner wherein we are to live, for such time as his or her ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... whispering side by side, Nor ceased the low murmur at eventide; So breathe in whispers The zephyrs through lindens at twilight vespers. ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner

... hurricane had spared—in whose favor storms and seas had intermitted their immitigable war—now at last fall by the hand of each other. The same spectacle of horror greets us from both ships. On their decks, reddened with blood, the murderers of St. Bartholomew and of the Sicilian Vespers, with the fires of Smithfield, seem to break forth anew, and to concentrate their rage. Each has now become a swimming Golgotha. At length, these vessels—such pageants of the sea—once so stately—so proudly built—but now rudely shattered by cannon balls—with ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... azagaya, the Roman pilum), a short stabbing sword and a shield. They served the king, the nobles, the church or the towns for pay, and were professional soldiers. When Peter III. of Aragon made war on Charles of Anjou after the Sicilian Vespers—-30th of March 1282-for the possession of Naples and Sicily, the Almogavares formed the most effective element of his army. Their discipline and ferocity, the force with which they hurled their javelins, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... vespers for the dead were now commencing with the "Placebo Domino." The priest with his loud rich voice sang or recited the anthem, and the attendants gave the response in a low and muttering sound. Just as he was beginning the fumigation with a sign of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... the Fleurs was a braw place under auld Duke Jemmy!" Nature, industry, peace, mirth, love, a kindred soul between duke and people, seemed to breathe in every gale there, and sing in the matins and vespers of every bird. There the lyric joyousness, characteristic of the Scottish people when allowed freely to develop, expanded itself to the utmost of its power and fervour. Fleurs was like the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... seen in his surplice, limping and singing the psalms and the responses, with such movements of his head, that the number of the faithful increased, and that people deserted the parish Church to attend Vespers ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... moistening rain have proved themselves stimulants in the laboratory of the wild-thyme shrubs, setting free and disseminating a new supply of aroma; and while until now the voice of animate nature has been conspicuous by its absence, the morning vespers of song-birds seed almost to be issuing, like flowers, from the ground. There is an indescribable charm about this morning's experience on the desert; dawn appears, the moon hangs low-suspended in the heavens, the birds carol merrily, and every inspiration ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... willing to save the credit of his country, and not to have the memory of an action so barbarous revived; but that I tempted my friend to alter it, is a notorious whiggism, to save the broader word. The "Sicilian Vespers" I have had plotted by me above these seven years: the story of it I found under borrowed names in Giraldo Cinthio; but the rape in my tragedy of "Amboyna" was so like it, that I forbore the writing. But what had this to do with protestants? For the massacrers ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... that this Pardon can be obtained only from vespers of the first to vespers of the second day of August, and that while in every other church communion is a necessary condition, it is sufficient to merely pass through the chapel of the Porziuncola, for which St. Francis obtained ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... person in question. You have already heard that you must help me, Luis. Did you see the Emperor yesterday after vespers?" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... with less ceremony, but perhaps with no less internal satisfaction, the golden chain, and bestowed it in a pouch lined with perfumed leather, which opened under his arm. "And now, Sir Cedric," he said, "my ears are chiming vespers with the strength of your good wine—permit us another pledge to the welfare of the Lady Rowena, and indulge us with liberty to ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... thus he mused, seeking to find a light To guide men on their dark and weary way, And through the valley and the shades of death, Until the glories of the setting sun Called him to vespers and ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles

... singing, for that I never attempt except to myself—but of uttering, to what I think tunes, your "Oh breathe not," "When the last glimpse," and "When he who adores thee," with others of the same minstrel;—they are my matins and vespers. I assuredly did not intend them to be overheard, but, one morning, in comes, not La Donna, but Il Marito, with a very grave face, saying, "Byron, I must request you won't sing any more, at least of those songs." I stared, and said, "Certainly, but why?"—"To ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... Zacharias (ob. 752 A.D.) point in this direction. In the Spanish Church particularly the very ancient custom of praying at the hour when the evening lamps were lighted had developed into the regular office of the lucernarium, as distinct from Vespers. The Mozarabic Breviary (seventh century) contains the prayers and responses for this service, and the Rule of St. Isidore runs: "In the evening offices, first the lucernarium, then two psalms, one responsory and lauds, a hymn and prayer are to be said." St. Basil also writes: "It ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius

... (property), grounds (dregs), letters (literature), manners (behavior), matins (morning service); morals (character), remains (dead body), spectacles (glasses), stays (corsets), vespers (evening service). ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... in endeavouring to devise some better mode of supplying the captive with nourishment, and in the construction of a tube, composed of hollow reeds, slipping into each other, by which liquids might be conveyed to him. The bell of the village church of Falkland tolled to vespers. The dey, or farm woman, entered with her pitchers to deliver the milk for the family, and to hear and tell the news stirring. She had scarcely entered the kitchen when the female minstrel, again throwing herself in Catharine's ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... a Sunday afternoon I attended Vespers in the chapel of the Sisters' Hospital (as it was called). A fine Sanitarium, managed entirely by the ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... once before with Mrs. C., and sitting in a dark corner, with my head against a cold, stone pillar, had heard vespers, all in the most approved style of the poetic. I went back to it now to see how it looked after the cathedrals of Germany. The churches of France have suffered dreadfully by the whirlwind spirit of its revolutions. ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... hearts in their voices, Had chanted the anthems of old, And the last trembling wave of the Vespers On the far shores of silence had rolled. And there — at the Queen-Virgin's altar — The sun wove the mantle of gold While the hands of the twilight were weaving A fringe for the flash of ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)

... "Christmas Eve Vespers" was suggested by the schoolmaster's little daughter going into church before the decoration had been put up, and exclaiming, disappointed, "No Christmas!" "The Second Sunday in Lent" recalls, in the line on "the mimic rain on poplar leaves," the sounds made by a trembling aspen, ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge

... sword! that modesty becomes thee mightily. But we must lose no time. Attend vespers this afternoon, there thou shalt find my conscientious valet, who will give thee proper directions and assistance to effect thy escape, and ample means to pass the remainder of thy precious life in some distant city of Spain, free from the ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... hate to learn the ebb of time, From yon dull steeple's drowsy chime, Or mark it as the sunbeams crawl, 675 Inch after inch, along the wall. The lark was wont my matins ring, The sable rook my vespers sing; These towers, although a king's they be, Have not a hall ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... very well I did so, for just afterwards Cheri's matins and vespers waxed fainter and fainter, and finally ceased altogether. In great anxiety I called in the highest medical science, which announced that he was only shedding his feathers. This opinion was corroborated by numerous little angelic ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... SISTER,—"I assure you that I always expect with intense eagerness my letters from Salzburg on post-days. Yesterday we were at S. Lorenzo and heard vespers, and to-day at the chanted mass, and in the evening at the second vespers, because it was the Feast of the Madonna del Buonconsiglio. A few days ago we were at the Campidoglio, where we saw a great many fine things. If I ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

... In 1290, 1292, and 1303, Edward the First kept Royal Christmases in the great hall at Westminster. On his way to Scotland, in the year 1299, the King witnessed the Christmas ceremonial of the Boy Bishop. He permitted one of the boy bishops to say vespers before him in his chapel at Heton, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and made a present to the performers of forty shillings, no inconsiderable sum in those days. During his Scotch wars, in 1301, Edward, on the approach of winter, took up his quarters in Linlithgow, where ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... that it was two o'clock as we crossed the fields, by the bell of the Capuchin monastery tolling for vespers: at the same moment the metallic, rattling sound of cattle-bells mixing with the ringing, and the sight of the peasants leaving their work and running in the direction of the high-road, told us that a herd of cattle was returning from the mountains. Other bells immediately ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... not return to us at dinner, or at recreation, or at chapel (when another chaplain said vespers), or even at nine o'clock, when we went to bed. But next morning, almost as soon as the Mother of the Novices had left the dormitory, she burst ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine



Words linked to "Vespers" :   canonical hour, evensong



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