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By Michael E. Ruane

The Washington Post

ARLINGTON, Va. -- U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, the longest-serving legislator in the history of Congress, was borne to his rest Tuesday amid the strains of the mountain music he loved and the words of the scripture he revered.

Byrd, D-W.Va., who died at age 92 last week, was buried beside his late wife, Erma, in an Arlington County cemetery on a sultry summer afternoon after a simple but moving funeral service at Arlington's Memorial Baptist Church.

It was the final goodbye in a week of heartfelt salutes to the child of the Appalachian coalfields who grew up to become a lion of the U.S. Senate and a legend in West Virginia.

Byrd's flag-draped coffin arrived at the church a little after 9 a.m. and was carried by a military honor guard from the gleaming black hearse into the red-carpeted sanctuary of the 60-year-old brick church on Glebe Road.

The coffin, covered in a large bouquet of white roses with a single red rose in honor of his wife, was placed at the front of the church on a catafalque hung with black, as dignitaries and mourners paused outside in the shade to sign a guest book.

Inside, as people assembled in the wooden pews of the white sanctuary, the recorded sounds of the mountain fiddle music that was one of Byrd's hallmarks filled the church.

On a table before the coffin, a large Bible was opened to the 23d Psalm: "The Lord is my shepherd ... "

The sanctuary was filled with dignitaries, including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., former U.S. senator Paul Sarbanes and Victoria Reggie Kennedy, widow of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.

Byrd had been elected to nine terms in the Senate, starting in 1958, and had served for almost a quarter of the country's history. He wrote a history of the Senate, was twice majority leader, and had chaired the senate's powerful Appropriations Committee.

Yet his funeral service was rich in plain, old-time hymns and readings from scripture, both of which mourners said Byrd would have loved.

The church's retired pastor, the Rev. Dr. William H. Smith, reminded those in attendance of how much Byrd, who lived in McLean, had loved the Bible, and how well he knew it.

Smith recalled how once, when he had preached on a certain part of scripture, Byrd approached him after the service, put his arm around him and recited from memory the 10 verses before and the 10 verses after the section Smith had cited.

"He described himself to me as a born-again, old-time-religion, Bible-based Christian," Smith said. "He was baptized along with Mrs. Byrd at age 19 in the Crab Orchard Baptist Church."

He loved the Bible, especially the King James Version, Smith said.

Smith recalled that one of Byrd's favorite sections of scripture was John, chapter 11, in which Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.

Lazarus emerges from the tomb bound in burial cloth.

"Loose him," Jesus says, "and let him go."

Smith said that phrase is carved on the tombstone at the grave where Byrd and his wife are buried.

The service opened with a 21-person choir, in maroon robes, singing, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." Smith recited the 23d Psalm, and the choir sang the old hymn, "There is a Fountain."

Two of Byrd's fellow musicians, fourth-generation fiddler Bobby Taylor and guitarist Andrew Dunlap, both of whom had played with the senator in the past, performed a haunting version of "Amazing Grace." Byrd was a noted fiddler in his day, and relatives recalled that he was dismayed when hand tremors finally halted his playing.

He still was able to sing, though.

The senator's family members rose and spoke of the kindly patriarch they called Papa, a man so powerful he could help create laws but so befuddled around the kitchen that he could not correctly brew tea.

His daughter, Marjorie Moore, said he would have wanted the speakers "to talk about Erma some." She did so by reciting a poem he wrote her in 1933 when he was 15 -- the "girl named Erma James."

They were married for 69 years.

Family members recalled how he mopped floors and cleaned bathrooms after his wife got sick, and how, as she was dying, he held her hand and told her he loved her.

After she died, he was so grief-stricken that would often tell visitors how many days it had been since she had passed away.

The Rev. Thomas Phythian, a hospice chaplain and Byrd family acquaintance, referenced the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, in which man is urged to make the most of his talents.

Byrd "certainly didn't bury any of his talents in the back yard," Phythian said. "He set the bar high for himself and others to follow."

At his burial in Columbia Gardens Cemetery, he was given a 21-gun salute, and two flags that had been draped over his coffin were given to his two daughters.

"We are grateful to God for him," Smith had said earlier. "Thanks be to God for your servant, Robert."