Eaten by teeth of flame, In a burning
winding-sheet he lies,
On the bed, at full length, and faintly illuminated by the pale light that came from the window, lay a sack of canvas, and under its rude folds was stretched a long and stiffened form; it was Faria's last
winding-sheet, -- a
winding-sheet which, as the turnkey said, cost so little.
The stars sent him their trembling rays, and the moon wrapped him in the white
winding-sheet of its effulgence.
He resorted to his pint of wine for consolation, drank it all in a few minutes, and fell asleep on his arms, with his hair straggling over the table, and a long
winding-sheet in the candle dripping down upon him.
Yet your face is one that I have seen; though it would not be strange, such has been my affright, should I see thee in thy
winding-sheet walking by my bedside to-night.
A ghost never comes naked: he appears either in a
winding-sheet or "in his habit as he lived." To believe in him, then, is to believe that not only have the dead the power to make themselves visible after there is nothing left of them, but that the same power inheres in textile fabrics.
He has a yellow look in the spectral darkness of a candle that has guttered down until the whole length of its wick (still burning) has doubled over and left a tower of
winding-sheet above it.
The impression on the mind of the sail seemed to be that we were playing at funerals, and that I was the corpse and itself was the
winding-sheet.
winding-sheet - burial garment in which a corpse is wrapped