"Dirge" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the defence of the house; and to the father, who followed the coffins, and the mother, who hid herself in the thicket, there was something like pleasure in the roll of the drum, and the measure of the dead march, and the warlike tone of the shrill dirge which was sung round the open graves, and the discharge of firearms over them—a satisfaction like that of fulfilling the last wish of their boy. This done, and the graves fenced and planted, the childless pair departed, wishing, perhaps, in their own ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... as dignity. Its author, had he lived in the nineteenth century, in default of new worlds to explore, or Armadas to fight, might have written an In Memoriam. In previous English poetry no such dirge is to be found as his Epitaph on Sir Philip Sidney. A couple of stanzas will indicate its ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... 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
... 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 round ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... and white, with silver crosses, the procession moves on to the cemetery on the outskirts of the town. The padre sheltered by a white umbrella, reads the Latin prayers aloud. A small boy swings the smoking censer, and the singers undertake a melancholy dirge. The withered body, with the hands crossed on the breast, clothed all in black, is borne aloft upon a bamboo litter, mounted with a black box painted with the skull and bones, and decked with candles. Women in black veils with candles follow, mumbling prayers, the words ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
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