They bound their brows with garlands of flowerets sweet and bright, In one hand each a cane-stalk bore, in one a taper white, And the clarions began to blow, and trump and Moorish horn, And whoop and shout and loud huzzas adown the street were borne.

THOMAS PARNELL FROM A NIGHT-PIECE ON DEATH By the blue taper's trembling light, No more I waste the wakeful night, Intent with endless view to pore The schoolmen and the sages o'er; Their books from wisdom widely stray, Or point at best the longest way.

Below me trees unnumbered rise, Beautiful in various dyes: The gloomy pine, the poplar blue, The yellow beech, the sable yew, The slender fir, that taper grows, The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs; And beyond the purple grove, Haunt of Phillis, queen of love!

By clearer taper lit, a cleanlier board Receives at supper hour her tempting hoard; The chamber hearth with fresher boughs is spread, And whiter is the hospitable bed.

A single taper in the vale profound Shifts, while the Alps dilated glimmer round; 1832.]

Then he turned with the taper in his hand and beckoned to Marcos and Juanita to come forward to the rails where two stools had been placed in readiness.

Someone brought in a lighted wax taper, and the strange man, gazing on the face of the sleeping child, asked: "Can she remain?

A plain table was laid for supper in the middle of the room, a wax taper burned on the mantel lighting up the interior of the Puritan's home.

He sat at a table on which burned a taper, and his wife and children were gathered about listening.

Get me a taper in my study, Lucius.

Sometimes the torch-dance was performed; in this each performer bore in his hand a long lighted taper, and endeavoured to prevent his neighbours from blowing it out, which each one tried to do if possible (Fig. 184).

When the taper faintly dwindles Like the pulse within the vein, That to gay and merry measure Ne'er may hope to bound again, Let the shadows gather round me While I sit in silence here, Broken-hearted, as an orphan Watching by his father's bier.

The lightning was the taper bright, The thunder was the melody, To which they danced with horrid glee.

Ah! when the friendly taper gloweth, Once more within our narrow cell, Then in the heart itself that knoweth, A light the darkness doth dispel.

MEPHISTOPHELES FAUST How far from yon sacristy, athwart the night, Its beams the ever-burning taper throws, While ever waning, fades the glimmering light, As gathering darkness doth around it close!

Vast, simple, awful in dimensions and height, just beginning to grow tall at the point where our proudest steeples taper out, it fills the whole soul, pervades the vast landscape over which it reigns, and, like Niagara and the Alps, abolishes that five- or six-foot personality in the beholder which is fostered by keeping company with the little life of the day in its little dwellings.

Lovely creatures with their taper fingers had been brewing a flag for us.

The pilgrims kept the 'holy vigil'that is to say, they passed an entire night in prayer before the relics with a lighted taper either fixed at their side or carried in the hand.

On this a gunwale, rising a foot above the water, is fixed, and the stem and stern taper to a point, the latter being much higher than the other, and ornamented with fret-work and gilding.

The doctor's kindest wishes e'er attend His beauteous patient, may he hope his friend; And prays that no corrosive disappointment May mar the lenient virtues of his ointment; Of which, a bit not larger than a shot, Or that more murd'rous thing, "a beauty spot," Warmed on the finger by the taper's ray, Smear o'er the eye affected twice a day.

[Elizabeth enters, meanly clad, carrying her new-born infant; Isentrudis following with a taper and gold pieces on a salver.

As he sat there, one would have thought that he was about to commence a course of study; and yet in the marble paleness of his features, and in the listless and languid eye, there was evidence that life in the boy was like an expiring taper, flickering in the socket.

Even so with the babe, life's feeble taper seemed to revive and emit a brilliant glare for a moment, the lips parted, the eyes wandered from object to object, and seemed to survey all the room contained, gazing most earnestly upon the face of the little sister, so soon to follow him, then wearily closing them with a slight struggle, the spirit passed away.

I like to shut myself up, close my eyes, and fancy one of the creatures of my imagination, with taper and rose-tipped fingers, playing with my hair, touching my cheek, or resting its little snowy-dimpled hand on mine.

Inadvertently the man bearing the lighted taper rested his arm for a moment against the stones.