Gleanings in Graveyards Part 29

EAST GRINSTEAD.

I was as gra.s.s that did grow up, And wither'd before it grew, As Snails do waste within their Sh.e.l.ls, So the number of my days were few.

RODMELL.

Elizabeth Ellis (1757).

If love and virtue doth conduce to grace the fair, These was once possessed by her who lieth here; But alas! by fate the object of her love was drowned.

By death surprized in trying to save a hound.

Which such effect had on her tender mind It brought her into a deep decline.

With him her transitory bliss is fled, And she a cold companion of the dead.

Since this catastrophe cannot fail to show How uncertain all earthly joys are here below.

BRIGHTON.

His fate was hard, but G.o.d's decree Was, drown'd he should lie-in the sea.

Warwicks.h.i.+re.

BIRMINGHAM.

By a Lady on her Husband.

Oh! cruel death, how could you be so unkind, To take _him_ before, and leave me behind.

You should have taken both of us-if either, Which would have been more pleasant to the _survivor_.

My time is out, my gla.s.s is run, I never more shan't see the sun; To live for ever, no man don't, The Lord does not think fitting on't.

COVENTRY.

Upon a rich Merchant's Wife.

She was What was, But words are Wanting to say what a One.

What a Wife should be, She was that.

STRATFORD ON AVON.

On Shakspeare's Monument are engraved the following distich and lines:-

"Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem, Terra tegit, populus mret, Olympus habet."

"Stay, pa.s.senger, why dost thou go so fast?

Read, if thou canst, what envious death hath placed Within this monument; Shakspeare, with whom Quick nature died; whose name doth deck the tomb Far more than cost, since all that he hath writ Leaves living art but page unto his wit."

Westmoreland.

RAVENSTONEDALE.

Here lies a Wife, Mary Metcalf, Where I was born, or when, It matters not,- To whom related, or By whom begot.

John Robinson Hunter, Aged 30.

He lived; and died Unplaced, unpensioned- No man's heir Or slave.

"Can the inhabitants of Ravenstonedale look at either of these monuments without blus.h.i.+ng? Can the freeholders of that parish look at the latter, and not consider it prophetically as the voice of one speaking from the dead?"

Wilts.h.i.+re.

SALISBURY.

"Innocence embellishes, divinely compleat, The pre-existing co-essence, now sublimely great.

He can surpa.s.singly immortalize thy theme, And perforate thy soul, celestial supreme.

When gracious refulgence bids the grave resign The Creator's nursing protection be thine.

So shall each perspiring aether joyfully arise, Transcendantly good, supereminently wise."