Sunday, September 14, 2008

Family Grave Poetry

I'm very fond of these messages from the dead to the living. In Halesowen churchyard there's a similar grave adorned with skull and crossbones above. As the family research continues, from 1707, Pembrokeshire ('Little England beyond Wales', hence the English language) :

Draw neare my friend and cast an eye
Then goe thy way - prepare to dye
Read heare thy doome for know thou must
One day like me be turnd to dust

And 1708

Remember wel you standers by
Appointed tis for al to dye
And after death to judgement fair
For soe the Scripture doth declare

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is supposed to be (ie, probably apocryphal) an inscription in a Winchcombe churchyard that goes:

Where there be wind
Let it blow free
For the keeping of it
Was the killing of me

Anonymous said...

Laban, we appear to be sharing a melancholy weekend. We must both try and cheer up! Or perhaps it is merely an example of great minds thinking alike.

http://duffandnonsense.typepad.com/duff_nonsense/2008/09/momento-mori.html

Anonymous said...

I like George Orwell's comment which was along the line: you can tell Victorians attitude to their patriarchs by the weight of the stonework they placed over their graves