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Dirge   /dərdʒ/   Listen
Dirge

noun
1.
A song or hymn of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person.  Synonyms: coronach, lament, requiem, threnody.






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"Dirge" Quotes from Famous Books



... flight. Then round thee stood the daughters of the ancient one of the sea, holding a pitiful lament, and they clad thee about in raiment incorruptible. And all the nine Muses one to the other replying with sweet voices began the dirge; there thou wouldest not have seen an Argive but wept, so mightily rose up the clear chant. Thus for seventeen days and nights continually did we all bewail thee, immortal gods and mortal men. On the eighteenth day we gave thy body to the flames, and many well-fatted sheep we slew around thee, ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.

... Senor. He listlessly began to turn over the papers on the table. Presently he paused. He had taken up a sheet of paper on which Senor Perkins had evidently been essaying some composition in verse. It seemed to have been of a lugubrious character. The titular line at the top of the page, "Dirge," had been crossed out for the substituted "In Memoriam." He ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... the home, her loyalty sure, her honour undefiled. Then follows another choral ode, similar in theme to the last, dwelling on the woe brought by the act of Paris upon Troy, the change of the bridal song to the trump of war and the dirge of death; contrasting, in a profusion of splendid tropes, the beauty of Helen with the curse to which it is bound; and insisting once more on the doom that attends insolence and pride. At the conclusion of this song the measure changes to a march, and the chorus turn to welcome the triumphant ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... he was being securely bound with his back to the trunk. About his feet dry wood was then placed, and half way up his body. When this had been accomplished, the Indians formed themselves in a circle about the unhappy man, and began to chant a slow weird dirge in the native tongue. ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody

... Chanted the death dirge of the slain; Behind, the long procession came Of hoary men and chiefs of fame, With heavy hearts, and eyes of grief, Leading the war-horse ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... the guests a'mornings, parading round the terraces with his bagpipes, and after dinner, as usual at the feasts of Highland magnates, he marches round the table in kilt and flying tartans with his drone-like dirge or furious slogan,—being rewarded on the spot ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... the white rivulet gleam, And the leaf of December fall sere on the stream; While Irfon his dirge whispers on through the combe, And the purple-topt hills gather ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... fifteen were the most difficult. In the open spaces the snow was belly-deep and soft. Frequently he plunged through drifts in which for a few moments he was buried. Three times during the early part of the night Baree heard the savage dirge of the wolves. Once it was a wild paean of triumph as the hunters pulled down their kill less than half a mile away in the deep forest. But the voice no longer called to him. It was repellent—a voice of hatred and of treachery. Each time that he heard it he stopped ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... to the shores I know not, As I list to the dirge, the voices of men and women wreck'd, As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me, As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer, I too but signify at the utmost a little wash'd-up drift, A few sands and dead leaves to gather, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... now, the baleful anthem, loud and long, Rose in full chorus from the passing throng; And Love's sad name, the cause of all their woes, In execrations seem'd the dirge to close.— But who the number and the names can tell Of those that seem'd the deadly strain to swell!— Not men alone, but gods my dream display'd— Celestial wailings fill'd the myrtle shade: Soft Venus, with her lover, mourn'd the snare, The King of ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... the tom tom's tone spurred the drummers to elaborate variations in rhythm. The stroke of the skilled performer could make it mourn a funeral dirge, voice the nuptial joy, throb the pageant's march, and roar the ambush alarm. Vocal music might be punctuated by tom toms and primitive wind or stringed instruments, or might swell in solo or chorus without accompaniment. Singing, ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... gazed absently at the men exchanging the bags of mail. All at once a sound of singing was heard in the distance. It was a woman's voice, old and quavering, and the song was a weird, almost unearthly, chant or dirge in a minor key. Slowly the singer approached the station, and reaching it, mounted the steps of the platform and seated herself on a bench, keeping on, without pause, her monotonous singing. The woman was a Mexican, very poorly dressed, and looked to be ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter

... horizon's verge, They passed beyond the tearful eyes That could not know if in the surge They sank at last, or in the skies Forgot the burden of their dirge! ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland

... clarion-toned captain is ringing, Above the hoarse murmuring roar of the surge, And an echoing voice, seems sepulchrally flinging, Far back o'er the waves, for the vessel, a dirge. ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... lines ran dirge-like in his head, as he sat, sunk in grief, beside his friend. Hallin did not speak; but his eye took note of every change of light, of every darkening tone, as the quiet English scene with its villages, churches, and woods, withdrew itself plane by plane into the evening haze. His ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... claim it, the anti-Clericals adorn it. The Christians bemoan within it the wickedness of the times. The Atheists are baptized in it, married in it, denounced in it, and when they die are, in great coffins surrounded by great candles, to the dirge of the Dies Ir, to the booming of the vast new organ, very formally and determinedly absolved in it; and holy water is sprinkled over the black cloth and cross of silver. The pious and the indifferent, nay, the sad little army of ...
— On Something • H. Belloc

... yon pile, soft voices swelling Dirge and anthem for the dead;— Demon shrieks, their lost doom yelling, Tend Lord ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... sentimental. Mrs Swadling, who never let herself be asked twice, for fear of being thought shy, led off with a pathetic ballad. She sang in a thin, quavering voice, staring into, vacancy with glassy eyes like the blind beggars at the corner, dragging the tune till it became a wail—a dirge for lost souls. ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone

... he passed the plains, the place of the sleepless winds where wan white skies bent above the grass of the hot dry pulse, the lifeless grass that wailed into the ceaseless wind its dirge of death and decay. ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris

... heart, now that the whole matter is no longer new,—is indeed old and trite,—we may judge with what vehement acceptance this /Werter/ must have been welcomed, coming as it did like a voice from unknown regions; the first thrilling peal of that impassioned dirge, which, in country after country, men's ears have listened to, till they were deaf to all else. For /Werter/ infusing itself into the core and whole spirit of Literature, gave birth to a race of Sentimentalists, who have raged and wailed in every part of the world, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... heaven partook of the nature of the Elysian Fields, while their hell[8] was as horrible as the most violent fanatic could depict it. It was a gulph of darkness, where the baneful animal crept, where the cold, gliding serpent maddened the sinner with his envenomed tooth, and hissed the dirge of horror, while the lion prowled along with his noiseless paw, and hungry wolves devoured those whom for their crimes on earth the Druids (unable to conquer or correct) ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various

... quiver, Juliot grew not gray, Thin Valency's river Held its wonted way. Bos seemed not to utter Dimmest note of dirge, Targan mouth a mutter ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy

... Most Excellent Majesty, being constitutionally partial to poetry, should desire to have constant private supply from respectable tip-top genius, to be kept snug on Royal premises and ready at momentary notice to oblige with song or dirge, according as High Jinks or Dolorousness are the Court ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... themselves in ranks in one of the courtyards of the pa, stripped to the waist. An old chieftainess, who moved along the ranks with regular steps, brandishing an ornamental spear in time to her movements, now recited the first verse of a song in a monotonous, dirge-like measure. This was joined in by the others, who also kept time by quivering their hands and arms, nodding their heads and bending their bodies in accordance with ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... carefully posted to prevent the approach of any of the natives. A few torches lighted the procession to a sandy plain near the encampment, where his body was interred, with no salute fired over his grave or even any dirge chanted by the attendant priests. The ground was carefully smoothed over so as to obliterate as far as possible all ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott

... be breaking the promise that our visit to the exhibition is not to involve us in a description of all its wonders, if we walk up-stairs and look into the Tunisian Cafe, attracted by the well-known drumming and the moaning dirge which Easterns call music. Tunis is best seen out of Tunis, for the broidered gold and bright-coloured slippers can then be enjoyed without those horrible scenes of filth—dead camels, open sewers, and maimed beggars which encase the shabby mud walls ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... most part; with the comedy of his queer fate: the tragedy was in the spectacles through which I chose to look. He was conscious of inconvenience, and above all of a great renouncement; but how could he have heard a mere dirge in the bells of his accession? The sagacity and the jealousy were mine, and his the impressions and the harvest. Of course, as regards Mrs. Wimbush, I was worsted in my encounters, for wasn't the state of ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James

... had flown before him To many a foreign land, His lays are sung by every tongue, And harp'd by every hand! He came to cull fresh laurels, But fate was in their breath, And turn'd his march of triumph Into a dirge of death. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various

... Praxinoe! That first-rate singer, the Argive woman's daughter, is going to sing the Adonis hymn. She is the same who was chosen to sing the dirge last year. We are sure to have something first rate from her. She is going through her airs and ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)

... wandering musicians who had, at the open grave, played as a dirge, or, rather, as a ringing hymn of resurrection and deliverance, the chant of the fatherland-that dark girl to whom he had said: "Bring me this jewel, and come and live in peace with the Zilahs"—was the mother of this beautiful, fascinating creature, whose every word, since he ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... on the soft green lawn fast asleep, an old gardener smoking his pipe and sitting on the edge of a wheelbarrow seemed following their example; and birds and insects only kept up a monotonous and drowsy dirge. ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre

... complaining flute In dying notes discovers The woes of hopeless lovers, Whose dirge is ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... evening, Till the cruel night enwrapped her, As she reached the sandy margin, Reached the cold and dismal sea-shore, Sat upon the rock of sorrow, Sat alone in cold and darkness, Listened only to the music Of the winds and rolling billows, Singing all the dirge of Aino. All that night the weary maiden Wept and wandered on the border Through the sand and sea-washed pebbles. As the day dawns, looking round her, She beholds three water-maidens, On a headland jutting seaward, Water-maidens four ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... hath joined the assembly here, With marble brow, and close-shut eye, And pallid lip,—while o'er her bier, The dirge was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various

... of the natives, and it was at length discovered, that they had lighted a chain of small fires between the sand-hill Captain Barker had ascended and the opposite side of the channel, around which their women were chanting their melancholy dirge. It struck upon the ears of the listeners with an ominous thrill, and assured them of the certainty of the irreparable loss they had sustained. All night did those dismal sounds echo along that lonely shore, but as morning dawned, they ceased, and Mr. Kent ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... present, but the Abbot of Westminster celebrated. All was exceedingly solemn and beautiful, in a far different style from the maimed rites that had been bestowed upon poor Queen Joanna in Scotland. The young King's face was more angelic than ever, and as psalm and supplication, dirge and hymn arose, chanted by the full choir, speaking of eternal peace, Eleanor bowed her head under her veil, as her bosom swelled with a strange yearning longing, not exactly grief, and large tears dropped from her eyes ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... she shriek'd! she sprung! She clasp'd it in its wat'ry bed! The dirge of death the night-blasts sung; The morn, in tears, ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent

... silver streams of Eridan,[90] On either side banked with a lily wall, Whiter than both, rides the triumphant swan, And sings his dirge, and prophesies his fall, Diving into his watery funeral! But Eridan to Cedron must submit His flowery shore; nor can he envy it, If, when Apollo sings, his ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... and the band was still; 'Twas the end of the dream, and the end of the measure: The last low notes of that waltz-quadrille Seemed like a dirge o'er the death of Pleasure. You said good-night, and the spell was over— Too warm for a friend, and too cold for a lover— There was nothing else to say; But the lights looked dim, and the dancers weary, And the music was sad, ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... deep in they really were. Foreman was in a particular jolly mood the next morning, for he had spent the night bidding against Pierrepont Morgan at an auction sale of old masters; but he listened patiently while Sowers called off the figures in a sort of dirge-like singsong, and until he had wailed out his final note of despair, a bass-drum crash, which he thought would bring Foreman to a realizing sense of their ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer

... was stooping by a distant tomb reading its epitaph to little Jennie, who listened with the deepest interest. There was no sound to mar the stillness of that peaceful retreat, the whispering winds went, dirge-like, through the waving grass, and the leaves rustled softly above ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... of the dummy flapped up and down without cadence. The soldiers snickered, squirmed restlessly. A sound started, a low, plaintive wail that broke into a dirge and finally into a wild shriek from Crawford's lips. He screamed and kicked over the chair his foot was balanced on. The ...
— The Second Voice • Mann Rubin

... man sat silent the bars boomed out their fateful news. Slow, brief, deep as a bell tolling a dirge, a reply rolled back. And with the solemnity of a funeral cortege the canoes once more moved on, unhurried, inexorable, the measured swing of the paddles beating like ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... final statement, whether intentional or not, is something I shall remember to my grave. I don't think that Carse meant it literally—on my own head—but I was unable to shake his words out of my ears, and throughout the night and the following day they hung about me like a dirge. ...
— The Homicidal Diary • Earl Peirce

... melancholy dirge in Norman French; the words, of which the following is an imitation, were united to a tune as ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... the listener. If you chance to be glad, then the pines will whisper of sunshine and summer, little love idylls that one tree tells to another, but if your heart is heavy within you, you will hear only a dirge in the hush ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... horais, and my Ionides would have no ear for aught beside. Yonder, in the mountain, they would carve a Doric cave temple, to receive your urn when all was done; and you would be accompanied thither by a dirge of the surviving Ionidae. The caves of the dead are empty now, however, and their place knows them not any more among the festal haunts of the living. But, by way of supplying the choric melodies ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Mrs. Todgers had perished by spontaneous combustion, and the serenade had been in honour of their ashes, it would have been impossible to surpass the unutterable despair expressed in that one chorus: 'Go where glory waits thee.' It was a requiem, a dirge, a moan, a howl, a wail, a lament, an abstract of everything that is sorrowful ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood

... been, as he feared it would be, a failure. As he gazed steadily at these his countrymen who would not give him even a little perfunctory applause for his best effort, he knew that the disappointment of it cut into his soul. And then he was aware that there was music, the choir was singing a dirge; his part was done, and his part ...
— The Perfect Tribute • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... unhealthy, while verse 4b and verse 5 present the advent of spring, and contrast the new life in animals and plants with the feebleness of the man dying in his chamber and unable to eat. Still another explanation is that the whole is part of a dirge, to be taken literally, and describing the mourners in house and garden. I venture, though with some hesitation, to prefer, on the whole, the old allegorical theory, for reasons which it would be impossible to condense here. It ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... my heart I pour through my lips along [Str. 1. The mingled wine of a joyful and sorrowful song; Wine sweeter than honey and bitterer than blood that is poured From the chalice of gold, from the point of the two-edged sword. For the city redeemed should joy flow forth as a flood, And a dirge make moan for the city polluted with blood. Great praise should the Gods have surely, my country, of thee, [Ant. 1. 1630 Were thy brow but as white as of old for thy sons to see, Were thy hands as bloodless, as blameless thy cheek divine; But a stain ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... borne to the grave under military escort, the soldiers marching to the mournful strains of the funeral dirge and muffled drums; the corpse was lowered to its last resting-place; the burial service read with a trembling voice by the chaplain,—for the missionary had taken his place among the mourners by the side of the widow,—the usual salute was ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson

... was Maneros, son of the earliest Egyptian king. He seems to hold the same position as Linus, son of Apollo, among the Greeks. The first song of Egyptian music was a dirge for his untimely end, and a lament for the swift passing away of youth, spring, joy, and so on. Gradually the song itself, instead of the king's son, began to be called Maneros, and became the well-known ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson

... the trap was sprung, in the Capitol of the greatest State of the North, the leaders of the crowd were firing a hundred guns as a dirge for ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... Though the mariners hear, with prophetical fear, In thy surging their deathly dirge. Still, surge, ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats

... earth afford thee room, Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb, Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be drest, And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast. Here shall the morn her earliest tears bestow— Here the first roses of the year shall blow; While angels with their silver wings o'ershade The ground now sacred ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various

... sudden chill O'er her ardent spirit crept; A sad presentiment of ill— She turned away and wept. Far off the sigh of ocean stole— The sweeping of the sounding surge— In plaintive murmurs o'er her soul, Like wailing of a funeral dirge. ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie

... Emperor Inkyo (A.D. 453), the Korean Court sent eighty musicians robed in black, who marched in procession to the Yamato palace, playing and singing a dirge as they went." ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... who roams at vanity fair, In robes that rival the tulip's glare, Think on the chaplet of leaves which round His fading forehead will soon be bound; Think on each dirge the priests will say When his cold corse is ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow

... turned from the contemplation of these difficulties by a sudden change in Rory's tune. He stopped in the midst of his low, wailing dirge and struck up loudly the lively air that told again and again of the mirth produced when "Jinny banged the Weaver." Scotty raised his head and looked across the pasture-field. That tune always ushered Weaver ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith

... comes, the poets sing a dirge: The year must perish; all the flowers are dead; The sheaves are gathered; and the mottled quail Runs in the stubble, but the lark ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... lamentation; "Weep for our warrior slain, Ne'er shall we see again, Our mighty captain." Rises the harpist old, Calls for his harp of gold, Sweeps through its mournful strings, And loud the music rings, The dirge of Rhuddlan. ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones

... a dirge,— A dirge for myriad chances dead; In grief your mournful accents merge: Sing, sing the girls ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... I worked at this funereal dirge, Where grief for a lost lifetime stands confessed, I wore a clerk's costume of sable serge, Though not gold eye glasses or ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... Rheinfrid was a novice in the house, and when the year had gone by he took the vows. In the presence of the brotherhood he cast himself on the pavement before the high altar, and the pall of the dead was laid over him, and the monks sang the dirge of the dead, for now he was indeed dying to this world. And from his head they cut the long hair, and clothed him in the habit of a monk, and henceforth he was done with all earthly things ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton

... completely irresponsible. The stunning effect of the blow may be seen in the wandering lines of Ulalume (1847). The end came to him in Baltimore in 1849, the same year in which he wrote the beautiful dirge of Annabel Lee for his dead wife. He was only forty when he died. This greatest literary genius of the South was buried in Baltimore in a grave that remained unmarked for ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... simple children obtain from their Moses and the Prophets. Yet external Nature does its share in their training; witness that most poetic of all their songs, which always reminds me of the "Lyke-Wake Dirge" in ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... was nothing interesting in it as a story, or it was so low that he felt no pleasure in dwelling upon it. He helped to make up the crowd in a spectacle and occasionally delivered letters and short messages on the stage: but his most important and useful occupation was singing in choruses. In the dirge in Romeo and Juliet he had a part allotted him, and never could forget the mortification he felt when a person of consequence inquired of the manager which of the ladies it was that so far exceeded all the rest in the power and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... them tenderly to rest, Those for their country dying,— Let breaking hearts and trembling lips Pour the sad dirge of sighing. Yet louder than the requiem raise The song of exultation, That the great heritage is ours To ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... paddle with which to steer, but he soon found that the blacks could manage the canoe perfectly well without his assistance. The heat was so great on the water that we were all thankful to avoid any unnecessary exertion. The blacks as they paddled sang a low monotonous song, more like a dirge. What it was about we could not tell. By looking back we saw that we had got some distance from the land, although we appeared not to have approached nearer the opposite shore, which still remained as indistinct as before. ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... the darkness of the road winding down from the Wartburg; voices are heard approaching, chanting a dirge. "Peace to the soul" the words come floating, "just escaped from the clay of the saintly sufferer!" Wolfram understands but to well. "Your angel pleads for you now before the throne of God. Her prayer is heard. Heinrich, you are saved!" With a cry of "Woe! Lost ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... bell of the great gateway is forever tolling its knell, and some mournful train is forever wending its slow way under the beautiful trees. Yet the sunlight falls brightly, the birds sing their sweetest over the new-made graves, the wind sighs its dirge through the tall trees, and the "sad sea waves" blend with it all their ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... upon the printed page, the spirit of what was given on that day cannot be reproduced. He wrote, the day after Thoreau's death, to Mr. Fields: "Come tomorrow and bring —— to my house. We will give you a very early dinner. Mr. Channing is to write a hymn or dirge for the funeral, which is to be from the church at three o'clock. I am to make an address, and probably Mr. Alcott may say something." This was the only announcement, the only time for preparation. Thoreau's body lay in the porch, and his townspeople filled the church, but Emerson ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields

... few poor old men, in tattered garments, were employed to officiate at the ceremony by holding "old torches and torches' ends" to light the gloomy precincts of the chapel during the time while the monks were chanting the funeral dirge. ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... concocted, and none but British soldiers would have sung. It had no known author and no known composer. It sort of "growed," like Topsy. If it had had a title given to it I suppose it would have been called "I want to go home," for that was its dirge-like refrain, always sung very cheerfully indeed, or with mock earnestness. Time and again I heard its chorus taken up with terrific gusto from end to end of this trench, and the whole extraordinary composition spread to other trenches like a contagion. Its popularity was instant and enduring—and ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey

... of English well-bred society, one can be present on such occasions by proxy. Your carriage will suffice, should you not feel equal to the task of attending in person. The full, deep, rich tones of the organ poured forth the funeral dirge, as the coffin was carried up the centre aisle and placed on trussels in front of the altar. The pews, gallery and aisles were filled by rich and poor; so much had the late Baronet been respected by friend and tenant. The venerable Rector who performed the service, although accustomed to ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... tottering, perhaps, to its fall, because of the decay going on within, while outside all seems fair and sound. It was so with the Charter Oak; and when this monarch of the forest was unexpectedly laid low, rich and poor, great and small, were gathered to mourn its loss. A dirge was played and all the bells in the city were tolled at sundown, for this monument of the past was a link gone that ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church

... 50-55. Andromache in her dirge (the regret of the French mediaeval epics) says that Hector lies unburied by the ships and naked, but she will burn raiment of his, "delicate and fair, the work of women ... to thee no profit, since thou wilt never lie therein, yet this shall be ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... our sometimes Sister, now our Queen, Th'Imperiall Ioyntresse of this warlike State, [Sidenote: to this] Haue we, as 'twere, with a defeated ioy, With one Auspicious, and one Dropping eye, [Sidenote: an auspitious and a] With mirth in Funerall, and with Dirge in Marriage, In equall Scale weighing Delight and Dole[1] Taken to Wife; nor haue we heerein barr'd[2] Your better Wisedomes, which haue freely gone With this affaire along, for all our Thankes. [Sidenote: 8] Now followes, that you know young Fortinbras,[3] Holding a weake supposall ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... the chilly spray? What good is all thy vain remorse? Thinkst thou from jaws of death to force A sacrifice so lightly thrust Upon the altar of thy lust? A host like thee could nothing urge To meet one tone of her sad dirge: ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... long struck midnight, and the sereno had several times raised his dirge-like chaunt in the street outside, before my companion came to me. She wasted no time in preliminaries. I think she could see by my outward expression that I knew how danger threatened, and so ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... expression from her countenance, which was now charged with an awful menacing gloom that frightened my soul. Sometimes, when straying alone, like an unquiet ghost among the leafless trees, when a deeper shadow swept over the earth, I would pause, pale with apprehension, listening to the many dirge-like sounds of the forest, ever prophesying evil, until in my trepidation I would start and tremble, and look to this side and to that, as if considering which way to fly from some unimaginable calamity coming, I knew not from where, to ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson

... a Shakespearian critic) the importance of these forgeries obscures the humble merit of Surtees, with his ballads of the 'Slaying of Antony Featherstonhaugh,' and of 'Bartram's Dirge.' Surtees left clever lacunae in these songs, 'collected from oral tradition,' and furnished notes so learned that they took in Sir Walter Scott. There are moments when I half suspect "the Shirra himsel" (who blamelessly forged so many extracts from 'Old Plays') of having composed 'Kinmont ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang

... gentlest poetry has ever been the produce both of heathery mountain and broomy brae; but the names of the sweet singers are heard no more, and the plough has gone over their graves. And they had their music too, plaintive or dirge-like, as it sighed for the absent, or wailed for the dead. The fragments were caught up, as they floated about in decay; and by him, the sweetest lyrist of them all, were often revivified by a happy word that let in a soul, or, by a few touches of his genius, the fragment became a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... to the funeral song! I pour the dirge of the Departed Days, For well the funeral ...
— Poems • Robert Southey

... dark draperies a wan white hand appeared; waved tremulously a last farewell; and vanished from my view. The curtains closed again on her dark and solitary life. The dreary wind sounded its long, low dirge over the rippling waters of the lake. The ponies took their places in the ferryboat which was kept for the passage of animals to and from the island. With slow, regular strokes the men rowed us to the mainland and took their leave. I looked back at the distant house. ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins

... strange temperament, I suppose," he resumed. "To-night this ravishing scene of beauty and splendor makes me sad at heart, I know not why. It seems too brilliant, too dazzling. I would as soon go home and compose a dirge ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... rising moan of that wind gathering itself around him, building to a wailing planet-dirge among the columns of the Temple. And inside, the Hirlaji were dying. The knives and bludgeons of the Earth mob outside would only complete the job; the Hirlaji were too tired to live. They dreamed dimly under the shadowed foreheads ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr

... sullen church-bell's intermittent moan, The dirge's melancholy monotone, The measured march, the drooping flags, attest A great man's progress to his place of rest. Along broad avenues himself decreed To serve his fellow men's disputed need— Past parks he raped away ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... whistling?" asked Lialia, gaily, as she came across the garden. "It's like a dirge for your ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef

... and anthems, a dirge accompanied by trumpets was sung, "And the King said to all the people that were with him, rend your clothes and gird you with sackcloth and mourn. And the King himself followed the bier. And they buried him; and the King lifted up his voice and wept at the grave, and all the people wept. And ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler

... sadly waileth Some bereaven Undine bride: O'er the springing waves outringing, Hark! a dirge floats ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... resting I watched Sandy. He stirred the fire under his kettle, put a fresh lag on, then walked to the mouth of the brook and stood looking up stream, wondering, no doubt, what was keeping me. Then a long cry came up the gorge. It was lost in the rush of the rapids and rose again in a wailing dirge. The young squaw was mourning for her papoose. It struck me colder than the waters of the Dosewallups. Sandy turned to listen. I knew I had only to call, show myself, and the boys would be ready to fight for me every step of the trail ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... soldiery, and the harsh clash of the shovel as it struck the earth. I felt sad and sick at heart, and leaned against a tree; a nightingale concealed in the leaves was pouring forth its plaintive notes to the night air, and its low warble sounded like the dirge of the departed. Far beyond, in the plain, the French watch-fires were burning, and I could see from time to time the fatigue-parties moving in search of their wounded. At this moment the clock of the convent struck eleven, and a merry chime rang out, and was taken up by the echoes till it ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... the responsible party," said Binnie, "and I would fain have converse with the Wuffle. That 'gilded subaltern' bit was ringing in my head like a dirge the other night when I was wearily trudging the seven kilometres from St. Denis camp because there was no one to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various

... caves that none of the men dared enter—vast, gloomy tunnels into the mountain through which the chill wind whistled like a dirge. Yet the caverns were warmer than the wind, and not bad camping-places if we could have persuaded the boys to take advantage ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... he, and they parted asunder and gave place to the wain. And the others when they had brought him to the famous house, laid him on a fretted bed, and set beside him minstrel leaders of the dirge, who wailed a mournful lay, while the women made moan with them. And among the women white-armed Andromache led the lamentation, while in her hands she held the head of Hector slayer of men: "Husband, thou art gone ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... there arose a melancholy chant from the old hags around—a dreadful strain, that sounded like a funeral dirge, sung in shrill, discordant voices, led by the nightmare hag, who as she sang waved in her hand a kind of club. All the time I held Almah in my arms, regardless of those around us, thinking only of her from whom I must soon again be separated, and whom I must leave in this drear abode to meet ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille

... Women, and what means this loud acclaim Within the house? The vassals' outcry came To smite mine ears far off. It were more meet To fling out wide the Castle gates, and greet With a joy held from God's Presence! [The confusion and horror of the Women's faces gradually affects him. A dirge-cry comes from the Castle.] ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides

... topmost surge, She shudders o'er the dark abyss; The foaming waters round her hiss And hoarse waves ring her funeral dirge; The chafing billows round her close; But ere her burning planks are riven, Shoots up one ruddy spout of fire,— Her last farewell to earth and heaven. Down, down to endless night she goes! So may the traitor's hope expire, So perish all ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... dissolution, dying, mortality, expiration, quietus, mort, obit, extinction; euthanasia (an easy death). Associated-words: eschatology, thanatology, thanatopsis, necrology, thanatophobia, necrophobia, necrolatry, requiem, necromancy, posthumous, post-mortem, ante-mortem, euthanasian, dirge, crossbones, placebo, in extremis, decedent, funeral, obit, obitual, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... stamped upon his face. The sun rose on that 25th of February, and the mud melted, and one of our companies drew up on each side of the gate. Downward slid the lion of England, the garrison drums beat a dirge, and the Hair Buyer marched out at the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... but one chair, except those behind the counters, in the store. Miss Keith took that with an exclamation of impatience. Crawford Smith, whistling a mournful dirge, sauntered to the end of the counter and sat down ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln

... much colder than before, darker, too, no moon now, only the silver stars; it makes one shiver. Nature seemed to lie stark and stiff and dead, and that accursed craake her dirge. All tended to shivering and gloom. Yet ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... to the house, a low wail—half a chant, half a dirge—rose from the black crowd, and floated off on the still night air, till it died away amid the far woods, in a strange, unearthly moan. With that sad, wild music in our ears, ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore

... hath first begun with his praise (for if he be proud you shall much better please him with a commendation than with a dirge) then, after favour won therewith, a man may little by little insinuate the doubt of such revelations—not at first as though it were for any doubt of his, but of some other man's, that men in some other ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... all that time. He must eat only once a-day, washing himself all over before this single meal, and devoting certain hours of every day to prayer. After the expiry of the year, he uses a certain ceremony for the soul of the king his predecessor, much like our solemn dirge; at which 100,000 persons are often assembled, among whom he distributes large alms. When this ceremony is ended, the prince is confirmed as inheritor of the kingdom, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... says 'Weep, this is the moment,' or 'Rejoice, the hour has come,' and we chant our dirge or kindle our bonfires accordingly. Why, it means a little martyrdom to the occasional sinner who selects his own occasion for sorrow ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... be found in Bonald, and also in De Maistre, though not, perhaps, in the volumes he had already published. It was less original than he at first imagined, for the English divines commonly held it from the seventeenth century, and its dirge was sung only the other day by the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol.[404] A Scottish professor would even be justified in claiming it for Reid. But of course it was Lamennais who gave it most importance, in his programme ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... never petitioned for mercy. She gave no sign of life or being, saving that she moaned at regular intervals in piteous accents:—'He has forgotten and abandoned me!' as if that one simple expression comprised in itself, her acknowledgment of the uselessness of her life, and her dirge for her ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... Ouija. I read aloud the vespers for the dead, but no phenomenon appeared, nor had I any sensation. About 7.30 I went to a room which I will call A [No. 1] ... and read aloud the first Nocturn of the dirge; there was nothing to be seen or heard, but I felt some physical inconvenience in beginning, like an impediment in speech, and I had a very strong sensation that there were persons listening....[G] Soon after ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various

... New York, with a few from New Jersey, Wisconsin, and Michigan. This was another solemn place for reflection. The soldiers' grave-yard on this island differs somewhat from all others. Here their funeral dirge will never cease; the requiem of the ocean's surge will ever sound as if saying, "Sleep on undisturbed until the last trump shall wake ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... injured man, and drawing himself up to his full height, as if it were a matter with which Heaven should be acquainted at the earliest possible opportunity, he indulged, as we before said, in the melancholy consolation of a whistled death-dirge, occasionally interrupted by a long-drawn interlude half sigh, half snuffle of ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... and gnashing of teeth. plaintiveness &c adj.; languishment^; condolence &c 915. mourning, weeds, willow, cypress, crape, deep mourning; sackcloth and ashes; lachrymatory^; knell &c 363; deep death song, dirge, coronach^, nenia^, requiem, elegy, epicedium^; threne^; monody, threnody; jeremiad, jeremiade^; ullalulla^. mourner; grumbler &c (discontent) 832; Noobe; Heraclitus. V. lament, mourn, deplore, grieve, weep over; bewail, bemoan; condole with &c 915; fret &c (suffer) 828; wear mourning, go ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... This woeful dirge of the mother's heart, and the wife's sorrow, had almost every eye in tears; and, indeed, it was impossible that the sympathy for her should not be deep and general. They all knew the excellence and mildness of her husband's character, and that ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... reared repose in sleep With folded bells where the night-dews weep, And the passing wind, like a spirit, grieves In a gentle dirge through the sighing leaves. The sun will kiss the dew from the rose, Its crimson petals again unclose, And the violet ope the soft blue ray Of its modest eye to the gaze of day; But when will the dews and shades ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... the Death of the Duke of Wellington ranks as a funeral dirge with Lycidas and Adonais. Napoleon's tomb in the Invalides may hold its own almost with the Taj. Yet, when all is said and done, the fact remains that no hero of the battle, and indeed few victims of war, have ever received a more ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey

... herself into it and became more and more intolerably arch, Alice became more and more severe. She purified the accompaniment from all taint of the young lady's intentions. It grew graver and graver. It was a hymn, a solemn chant, a dirge. The dirge of the last hope of the ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair

... you! Good-bye! Good-bye!" we cried, till the salt sea-wind tore the words from our teeth and bowed our heads as we galloped through the suburbs and out into the icy high-road, where, above us, the telegraph-wires sang their whirring dirge, and the wind in the gorse whistled, and the distant forest sounded and resounded ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... to coral Of the purest virgin white, Her teeth are finest pearl, And her eyes are diamonds bright; The breeze oft sweeps the willows In a sad and mournful strain, And moaning o'er the billows Sings the dirge of Jess M'Lean. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... last rock left no surviving spoil. Cold lay they where they fell, and weltering, While o'er them flapped the sea-birds' dewy wing, Now wheeling nearer from the neighbouring surge, And screaming high their harsh and hungry dirge: But calm and careless heaved the wave below, Eternal with unsympathetic flow; Far o'er its face the Dolphins sported on, And sprung the flying fish against the sun, 370 Till its dried wing relapsed from its brief height, To ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... who care little for dreams and theories, who are of the world, and will not leave the earth; some who sing, others who hum, others who talk. Certain poems are like clarions, and celebrate the battle of Crecy, of which Chaucer had not spoken; others resemble lovers' serenades; others a dirge for the dead. ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... upon the moon as she coursed through a cloudy heaven. The wind whistled through the leaves, and its melancholy moaning sounded like our death-dirge. Several times through the night I heard the howl of the prairie wolf, and I knew it was Lincoln; but the Jarochos had pickets all around, and the hunter dared not approach our position. He ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid

... account of the confinement. I disliked serving in my father's office, too, from the same hatred to restraint. In other respects, I have had unhappy days—unhappy weeks—even, on one or two occasions, unhappy months; but Fortune's finger has never been able to play a dirge on me for a quarter of ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... moonbeam looks in fixedly, marking the bars of the grated windows on the prostrate, sleeping forms. The mother and daughter are singing together a wild and melancholy dirge, common as a ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... nor left, she slowly advanced, mounted the rostrum, and solemnly seated herself in the high-backed chair of polished walnut. Then Azzie touched the keys and gave expression to the most melancholy dirge one could conceive. So sympathetic was her music that a hush fell over the ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird

... groaned, chocks and bitts crooned their song of stress, the wind whistled its dirge, while out from the breakers ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly

... like that of distant drums. Gusts of rain and the water from the roof beat against the south windows, while the wailing wind played its mournful cadences about the eaves, and the stanch timbers added their creaking notes to swell the dirge-like chorus. ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... her dead heroes, and hung, as if in sentient grief, over the spot which was to be their tomb. Her graceful hull, lofty spars, and snowy canvas gleamed refulgent in the last rays of the setting sun as he sank to his rest through a bank of rainbow-tinted clouds, and the rising wind sobbed and moaned dirge-like ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... that burn but once a year, (Veined Aureoles to altars where, When sins are told unto each knell As chanting runes are hushed with clasps Of winds provoked by black-set night, Peer at the caravans in prayer; A dirge is sung by magicians; Each Idol squints eyes at the show, Whilst goblins curse the eerie sight. And Betelguese, an evil lair With infernal, warring legions, Careens as ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque

... none, but walked, her face partly shaded by a thin black veil, between two persons, who supported her, preceded by the abbess, and followed by nuns, whose plaintive voices mellowed the swelling harmony of the dirge. When the procession came to the grave the music ceased. Emily drew the veil entirely over her face, and, in a momentary pause, between the anthem and the rest of the service, her sobs were distinctly ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... Outside, on the castle terrace, appear four phantom shapes clothed as women in dusky robes. They are Want, Guilt, Care, and Need. The four grey sisters make halt before the castle. In hollow, awe-inspiring tones they recite in turn their dirge-like strains: they chant of gathering clouds and darkness, and of their brother—Death. They approach the door of the castle hall. It is shut. Within lives a rich man, and none of them may enter, not even Guilt—none save only Care. She slips ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill

... my tomb,' the Raven said, 'Within the dark yew-tree, So in the Autumn yewberries Sad lamps may burn for me. Summon the haunted beetle, From twilight bud and bloom, To drone a gloomy dirge for me At dusk above my tomb. Beseech ye too the glowworm To bear her cloudy flame, Where the small, flickering bats resort, Whistling in tears my name. Let the round dew a whisper make, Welling on twig and thorn; And only the grey cock at night ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare

... proof; Nor look for mercy from the incessant surge Her forces mixed of craft and passion urge For the one whelming wave to spring aloof. She, tenderness, is pitiless to them Resisting in her godhead nature's truth. No flower their face shall be, but writhen stem; Their youth a frost, their age the dirge for youth. These miserably disinclined, The lamentably unembraced, Insult the Pleasures Earth designed To people and beflower the waste. Wherefore the Pleasures pass them by: For death they ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... song to sing, O! [SHE] Sing me your song, O! [HE] It is sung to the knell Of a churchyard bell, And a doleful dirge, ding dong, O! It's a song of a popinjay, bravely born, Who turned up his noble nose with scorn At the humble merrymaid, peerly proud, Who loved that lord, and who laughed aloud At the moan of the merryman, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... branch creaked under its travail. Now and then the wind that drove the snow rose to a gusty whisper, and a stark limb scraped the eaves of the house with grating, lifeless fingers. But between the occasional stress-cries of the storm, there came the low, dirge-like monotony of the sifting snowfall. And as always in old houses there were the little voices and the minute nameless stirrings of the night. The ghost-moan of drafty chimneys and the creak of warped timbers became ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... of the service, the firing-party in their places, six on either side of the grave, would fire three volleys into the air, while the band breathed a solemn dirge. ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... "what is your heart on your halfpenny,[1] or are you saying a dirge for your father's soul? What, ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge

... and America, while telegrams from Booth, McCullough, Lawrence Barrett, Irving, Ellen Terry, Christine Nilsson, and Lillie Langtry, bade her be of good courage, and wished her success. The overture smote like a dirge on her ear, and when the callboy came to announce that the moment of her entrance was at hand, it reminded her of nothing so much as the feeling of mourners when the sable mute appears at the door, as a signal to form the procession to the tomb. But in a moment the ordeal was ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar

... the jolly nut-brown bowl; And here, kind mate, to thee! Let's sing a dirge for Saint Hugh's soul, And ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... And for myself, although I am past my sportive days, the sound of a street organ, if any, would inflame me to a fox-trot. Even a surly tune—if the handle be quickened—comes from the box with a brisk seduction. If a dirge once got inside, it would fret until it came ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks

... voice that made those sounds more sweet[ag] Is hushed, and all their charms are fled; And now their softest notes repeat A dirge, an anthem o'er the dead! Yes, Thyrza! yes, they breathe of thee, Beloved dust! since dust thou art; And all that once was Harmony Is worse than discord ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... the battle-field; and the cold pale moon Looked down on the dead and dying; And the wind passed o'er with a dirge and a wail, Where the ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... Bacchus, come and join In solemn dirge, while tapers shine Around the grape-embossed shrine ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... several priests, deacons, and acolytes appeared, and the service commenced. So far as the priests were concerned it was very mechanical, even to the elevation of the Host, and the sprinkling of the coffin and friends of the deceased with holy water; but the dirge-like chanting in and between the service was very beautiful and solemn. Many coffins were brought in and conveyed to the different chapels within the Cathedral during this service. It would appear that the length of the ceremonies depend upon the amount of money paid for them: but, as ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... the setting sun had now departed. The last tones of the dirge had died away. Everything was still and deserted, as if there could ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne

... down upon his Sheaf's green verge That brave old heart of oak, With fitting dirge from sounding forge, And pall of furnace smoke! Where whirls the stone its dizzy rounds, And axe and sledge are swung, And, timing to their stormy sounds, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier



Words linked to "Dirge" :   song, requiem, vocal, keen, coronach, threnody



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