The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1885-08-25
TOMBSTONE SENTIMENTS.
People UsuaIly Resort to Rhymes to Ex-
press Their Grief for the Dead.


thousands of people each week puzzle
over the melancholy specimens of obit-
u&ry verse inscribed on them. The
hand of time has rubbed out many and
Others are fast fading away, so that
hardly more than half are decipherable.
These are of all moods-hopeful, cheer
full, monitory, despairing, angry, hui
morous and religious.
One over David Evans, who died in
1857, 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
name gone, and only the date. 1867,
visible, are these verses, which are evi-
IDENTITY over the grave of a seafaring
man:
Tho Boreas blasts and boistrous waves
Have tOSt me to and fro,
In spite of both by Gods decree
harbour here below.
Where do now at anchor ride
With many of our feet
Yet once again must set sail,
Ny Admiral Christ to meet.
This was evidently progenitor OF
the nautical religious hymns, such as
Pull for the Shore, ''Raise the Anch-
or" etc. IL 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.
d. The following on the grave of Cathe
fine Wood, 1888, is in the orthodox
vein:
Ny flesh shall slumber IN the ground
Till the last trumpets joyful sound
Shall burst the grave with sweet surprise
And in my Saviour image rise.
Here is one of the affectionate type,
evidently put there by wife. 1t is on
the stone of Samuel Boyer, 1890:
Rest here. my love, while in vain depIore
Thy sudden fate, and grieve thou art no
Obi may thy gentle spirit wing its way
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, ne'er 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.
Ny days are past and spent which were bu,
few;
Grieve not for me, dear parents. It's in vain;
Your loss, nope, is my eternal gain.
Here is one of an amatorv kind, over
Lydia Curtis, who died in 1904:
Cold as this stone is now that lovely form,
The sight of which could every bosom warm,
Mkt with this earth it's Wondering ashes lie,
Ah!youth and beauty, this il is to die.
The reader must decide for himself
on the merits of the following epitaph
over John Jones, a Welchman, who
died in 1905:
Gwrando ddun with fyned heibig
Eel rwyter muinan fyo
Ller wy fy tydi 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 are all
combined
To rob us OF our worldly Joy;
Which, children like, we love as TOYS;
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 il 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 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 orpain,
With care and trouble sore;
But they are best who are at rest
With Christ foreyermore.
Mary McCarr sounded a solemn
warning to her parents in 1917:
MY parents dear. who mourn and weep
Behold the grave wherein sleep.
Prepare for death. for you must de
And be entombed as well as I.
Deborah Ustick said in 1916:
Our life's a 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 5 alarms:
It's but the voice that Jesus sends
To call US to his arms.
Here is another verse about a baby.
IL was written year later:
As the sweet flower that scents the morn.
But withers in the rising dav.
Thus lovely was this infants dawn
Thus swiftly fed its life away.
Discomfort, followed by triumph,
characterized the following placed over
Mrs Halstead in 1919:
Relentless death, wOuldSt thou not spare
A form so lovely and so much beloved!
Ah notify iron hand has grasped
Her husbands treasure and her children's
Joy:
But still amidst this tedious night of gloom,
& thought, transporting, bursts upon my
mind;
Death had no sting, the grave no victory,
Through grace, she triumphed in the dying
hnFa