Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-09-04

others are fast fading away, so that
hardly more than half are d~ecipherable.
These are of all moods-hopeful, cheer
full, monitory, despairing, angry, hui
morous and religious.
One over David Evans, who died in
1877, is very terse. 1t says:
Short was his life,
Great was his pain;
Much was his loss,
Great was his gain.
Only nine words are used in the
verse. On a broken stone, with the
rame gone, and only the date, 1867,
Visible, are these verses, which are evil
Identity over the grave of a seafaring
man:
Tho oreas blasts and boistrous waves
tn have LAVE t of b me to to- and Gdd fros oo.oo
Il harbour here below.
Where l do now at anchor ride
With many OF our fleet,
Yet once again 1 must set sail,
My Admiral Christ to meet.
This was evidently a %progenitor of
the nautical religious hymns, such as
''Pull for the Shore y ''Raise the Anch-
or" etc. II finds an imitator on the
stone of Captain Isaac Bangs, 1908:
Boreas blasts and Neptune's waves
Have tossed him to and fro,
But, by the sacred will of God,
He's anchored here below.
The following on the grave of Cathe-
rine Wood, 1888, is in the orthodox
VEN:
Ny flesh shall slumber in the ground
Iill the last trumpet's joyful sound
Snail burst the grave with sweet surprise
AND IN my Savlour's image rise.
Here is one of the affectionate type,
evidently put there by a wife, 1t is on
the stone of Samuel Boyer, 1890:
Rest here. my love, while I in vain deplore
Thy sudden fate, and grieve thou art no
more;
To blissful regions of unfailing day.
The friends OF Ephraim Smith, who
died in 1897, were evidently unrecon-
ciled to his fate when they set up this
inscription:
Relentless death, meier satisfied with prey,
Hath snatched him in the bloom Of life away.
Joseph Pell, aged six years, who died
in 1902, speaks from the grave in this
style:
Like as a shadow or the morning dew,
My DAYS are past and spent, which were but
Grieve not for me, dear parents, tits in vain;
Your loss, 1 nope, is my eternal gain.
Here is one of ar amatorv kind, over
Lydia Curtis, who died in 1904:
Cold as this stone is now that lovely form,
Mkt with this earth its Wondering ashes lie,
Ah!youth and beauty, this it is to die.
The reader must decide for himself
on the merits of the following epitaph
over John Jones, q Welchman, who
died in 1905:
Gwrando ddun with fyned heibig
Eel rwyter muinan a fyo
Ller wy fy tydi a ddewy
YmbartOa Gangs meru tyddy.
The friends of James Stoutenburgh
wrote the following over him after he
died, in 1910:
Alas! how weak and feeble is the human mind
When sorrows, care, and troubles arc all
combined
IT, s rob US Us; of y worldly Joy:
What little fortitude or minds do SHOW
When borne down with grief and woe.
ETC., etc., etc., etc.
The widow of John Mathews wrote
over his grave, in 1911, this stanza:
/ leave it all to God above
To do his will and show his love,
And when he calls we will obey,
To dwell with him in endless day.
The following, written over a babe,
is in marked contrast with most of the
tombstone rhymes:
Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade,
Death came with friendly care;
The opening bud to heaven conveyed,
And bid it blossom there.
Ann James, who died in 1916, aged
seventy-six, was apparently glad to
die. Her shrine says:
The world is vain and full of'pain,
With care and trouble sore;
But they are blest who are at rest
With Christ forevermore.
Mary McCarr sounded a solemn
warning to her parents in 1917:
My parents dear, who mourn and weep.
Behold the grave wherein I sleep.
Prepare for death, for you must die
And be entOmbed as we'll as I.
Deborah Ustick said in 1916:
Our life's q journey full of care.
No wealth from death can save.
Each step We take more near we draw
To our dark, silent grave.
The following, erected in the same
year, is more cheerful:
Why should We mourn departed frie nds
Or shake at death s. alarms?
TITS but the voice that Jesus sends
To call us to his arms.
Here is another verse about a baby.
1t was written a year later:
As the sweet flower that scents the morn,
But Withers in the rising day,
Thus lovely was this infants dawn
Thus swiftly fled its life away.
| DloSoACSAos AOAAO"Cu NV GIluLuDu,
characterized the following placed over
Mrs. Halstead in 1919:
Relentless death, wouldst thou not spare
A form SO lovely and so much beloved?
All! no; thy iron hand has grasped
Her husbands treasure and her children's
Joy;
But still amidst this tedious night of gloom.
A thought, transporting, bursts upon my
mind;
Death had no sting, tho grave no victory,
Through grace, She triumphed in the dying
our.
Blank verse is so are that there
seems to be only one other sample. 1t
was placed over w. A. Lawrence in
1910. He died at sea:
Eold is thy brow, my son. and pale thy cheek,
The bright expression of that eye has fed;
And thou no more with thy soft voice shall
come
To meet me with thy sweet "My father"
-NeW York Sun.
Vases made of very porus earthen-
ware, when soaked for twenty-four
hours. will retain on their sides a num-
Der of seeds resembling rape. By keep
inp the vase filled with wafer the seods