Quaint Epitaphs | Page 8

issue vast did pour?Of great grandchildren five times four.?Rich born, rich bred, yet Fate adverse?His wealth and fortune did reverse.?He lived and died immensely poor?July the tenth aged ninety-four.
ELLINGTON.
Here rest the remains of Alexander McKinstry.
A kind husband, tender parent, dutiful son, affectionate brother, faithful friend, generous master, and obliging neighbor. The house looks desolate and mourns, every door groans doleful as it turns. The pillars languish and each silent wall in grief laments the masters fall.
Joseph Horton, Pedlar.
I lodged have in many a town?And travelled many a year.?Till age and death have brought me down?To my last lodging here.
FALKIRK, ENG.
Here lies the body of Robert Gordon,?Mouth almighty and teeth according.?Stranger tread lightly on this wonder,?If he opens his mouth you are gone to thunder.
Here under this sod and under these trees?Is buried the body of Solomon Pease.?But here in this hole lies only his pod?His soul is shelled out and gone up to God.
Sacred to the memory of Anthony Drake,?Who died for peace and quietness sake.?His wife was constantly scolding and scoffing,?So he sought repose in a twelve dollar coffin.
At rest beneath this slab of stone,?Lies stingy Jimmy Wyett.?He died one morning just at ten?And saved a dinner by it.
Here lies the body of Sarah Sexton?She was a wife that never vexed one.?But I can't say as much for the one at the next stone.
I Dionysius underneath this tomb?Some sixty years of age have reached my doom.?Ne'er having married, think it sad,?And I wish my father never had.
Underneath this marble hearse?Lies the subject of all verse;?Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.?Death ere thou hast slain another?Wise and fair and good as she?Time shall throw a dart at thee.
KENT.
Here lies two brothers by misfortune surrounded;?One died of his wounds but the other was drownded.
Epitaph of Susan Blake.?Written by Sir Thomas Moore at her urgent entreaty.
Good Susan Blake in royal state?Arrived at last at Heaven's gate.
(After an absence of years and having fallen out with her he added these two lines.)
"But Peter met her with a club?And knocked her back to Beelzebub."
Beneath this stone in hopes of Zion,?Doeth lay the landlord of the Lion.?His son keeps in the business still?Resigned unto His heavenly will.
John Palfryman who is buried here?Was aged four and twenty years.?And near this place his Mother lies?Likewise his father when he dies.
SALISBURY.
Farewell vain world I've had enough of thee,?And value not what thou canst say of me;?Thy smiles I court not, nor thy frowns I fear,?All's one to me, my head lies quiet here;?What faults thou'st seen in me take care to shun?And look at home, there's something to be done
Like a tender rose-tree was my spouse to me.?Her offspring plucked too long deprived of life is she. Three went before, her life went with the sixth:?I stay with the three our sorrows for to mix,?Till Christ our only hope our joys doth fix.
SHETFORD CHURCHYARD.
My grandfather was buried here,?My cousin Jane and two uncles, dear.?My father perished with inflammation of the eyes.?My sister dropped dead in a nunnery.?But the reason why I am here interred according to my thinking, Is owing to my good living and hard drinking,?If therefore, good Christians, you wish to live long?Don't drink to much wine, brandy, gin, or any thing strong.
Beneath this monumental stone?Lies half a ton of flesh and bone.
Shakspeare.
Good friends for Jesus' sake forbear?To stir the dust enclosed here.?Blest be the man who spares these stones?And cursed be he who moves my bones.
NOVA SCOTIA.
Here lies old twenty five per cent.?The more he had the more he lent.?The more he had the more he craved,?Great God, can his poor soul be saved?
MT. PARK CEMETERY, MONTREAL.
Fred McKernan, Aged three years.
Johnie wants to know where do you now stay?Or with whom do you now play,?Or where do you roam??For the little iron cot?Your poor mother bought?Still waits for you at home.
FOLKSTONE.
Mrs David Stuart
For twenty years and eight I lived a maiden's life?And five and thirty years I was a married wife.?And in that space of time eight children I did bear,?Four sons, four daughters who I ever loved most dear;?Three of that number as the Scriptures run,?Preached up the way to Heaven--and Hell to shun.
Maiden Lillard,
A young Scotch woman, who at the battle of Ancrum, 1545, distinguished herself by her extraordinary valor.
Fair Maiden Lillard lies under this sod.?Little was her statue but great was her fame.?Upon the English loons she laid many thumps,?And when her legs were cut off she fought upon her stumps.
Here lies a man who all his mortal life?Spent mending clocks, but could not mend his wife.?The larum of his bell was ne'er so shrill?As was her tongue, aye, clacking like a mill.?But now he's gone--oh whither none can tell?But hope beyond the sound of Matty's bell.
PARIS.
Adah Isaac Menkin.
"Thou knowest."
Lord Byron's epitaph on his Newfoundland dog at Newstead.
"To mark a friend's remains?These stones arise.?I