lament

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lament

a poem or song in which a death is lamented

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

References in classic literature ?

- Meetings of Relations and Friends.-Indian Sensibility.- Meeting of a Wounded Warrior and His Mother.- Festivities and Lamentations.

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The air was rent by the shrieks and lamentations of the women, who, casting off their ornaments and tearing their hair, wandered about, frantically bewailing the dead and predicting destruction to the living.

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But soon their murmurs turned again into lamentation when they saw what was to come.

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His look never changed throughout the whole of the scene, nor did a muscle move in his rigid countenance, even at the wildest or the most pathetic parts of the lamentation. The cold and senseless remains of his son was all to him, and every other sense but that of sight seemed frozen, in order that his eyes might take their final gaze at those lineaments he had so long loved, and which were now about to be closed forever from his view.

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For, yet a little while, And sound of lamentation shall be heard, Of men and women through thy desolate halls; And all thy neighbor States are leagues to avenge Their mangled warriors who have found a grave I' the maw of wolf or hound, or winged bird That flying homewards taints their city's air.

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Instantly all was explained--the wailing and lamentation, the pleading of the black mother, the sympathetic howling of the shes about the fire.

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of our lamentations on the loss of Edward and Augustus and finally of the melancholy Death of my beloved Companion.

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She now began to bewail herself in very bitter terms, and floods of tears accompanied her lamentations; which the lady, her companion, declared she could not blame, but at the same time dissuaded her from indulging; attempting to moderate the grief of her friend by philosophical observations on the many disappointments to which human life is daily subject, which, she said, was a sufficient consideration to fortify our minds against any accidents, how sudden or terrible soever.

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When we came to the village on the top of it, where the lord lived, we were surprised with the cries and lamentations of men that seemed to suffer or apprehend some dreadful calamity; and were told, upon inquiring the cause, that the inhabitants had been persuaded that we were the devil's missionaries, who came to seduce them from the true religion, that foreseeing some of their neighbours would be ruined by the temptation, they were lamenting the misfortune which was coming upon them.

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Without listening the least in the world to the lamentations of M.

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I found a dismal letter from him on my arrival here, full of complaints of his wife and sister, and lamentations on the cruelty of his fate.

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His entrance was followed by that of the widow, whose lamentations filled the room.