More Music in Cemeteries. . .

 

 

lancaster--lady.JPG (43455 bytes)MontRoyal--bentover.JPG (60083 bytes)

 Summer sun, shine kindly here;

 Warm southern wind, blow softly here;

 Green sod above, lie light, lie light --

 Good-night, dear heart, good-night,
   good-night.

   - from the grave of Olivia S. Clemens, departed August 18, 1890

 

 

 

MontRoyal--in_spring.JPG (50168 bytes)

 

 

MontRoyal--girl-cropped.JPG (30012 bytes)

MontRoyal--foot.JPG (41237 bytes) Sleep here Awhile

Thou dearest part of me

In Little Time

I'll come and Sleep with Thee.

    - unknown

 

 

 

 

MontRoyal--headdown.JPG (43644 bytes)

It is so soon that I am done for,

I wonder what I was begun for.

- unknown, 17th century

 

 

 

MontRoyal--lying2.JPG (133453 bytes)

Stop stranger as you pass by
As you are now so once was I
As I am now so you will be
So be prepared to follow me.

              - unknown

(Inscribed beneath:
    
To follow you I'd be content
    If I only knew which way you went
)

 

 

 

MontRoyal--lying1.JPG (39067 bytes)

 

 

MontRoyal--silhouttewithangel.JPG (63281 bytes)

 

 

 

And, shaking hands, they parted all in love.
The body's here, the better part's above.

            - from the grave of Grace Traddleston

 

 

 

 

MontRoyal--draped.JPG (57789 bytes) Do not stand by my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am a diamond glint on snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle Autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circular flight
I am the soft starshine at night.
Do not stand by my grave and cry
I am not there. . . I did not die.

                          - ? Northwest Indian Memorial, from a garden stone in Ross Park Zoo

 

 

 

lancaster--cross.JPG (59988 bytes)lancaster--rabbit.JPG (47639 bytes)

To mark a friend's remains

  these stones arise;

I never knew but one--

  and here he lies.

              - Lord Byron, quoted in In Remembrance of a Special Dog  by Richard O'Connor 

 

 

 

Niagara-on-the-Lake--tree.JPG (116540 bytes)

 

MontRoyal--folds.JPG (45499 bytes)

 

 

 

 

No matter how deep my sleep I shall hear you, 

and not all the power of death

can keep my spirit 

from wagging a grateful tail.

- from the book The Last Will and Testament 
of an Extremely Distinguished Dog by Eugene O'Neil 

 

 

 MontRoyal--curl.JPG (51297 bytes) MontRoyal--classic_weeping.JPG (47714 bytes)

Dry up your tears, and weep no more,

I am not dead, but gone before,

Remember me, and bear in mind

You have not long to stay behind.

                    - unknown

 

 

 

 

MontRoyal--resting.JPG (59783 bytes)

I shall lie like this when I am dead--
But with one more secret in my head.

           - Dorothy Livesay's "Going to Sleep", from the poetry collection To Say the Least edited by P. K. Page

 

 

 

 

MontRoyal--sandal.JPG (42608 bytes)

MontRoyal--peasantgirl.JPG (42277 bytes)

Weep if you must,
Parting is hell,
But life goes on,
So sing as well.


by Joyce Grenfell, quoted by Greg Palmer in the PBS television program "Death: The Trip of a Lifetime"

 

 

 

 

Glenwood&StMarys--lone_angel.JPG (47486 bytes)

She had no fault but what travellers give the moon :
Her light was lovely, but she died too soon.

- from the grave of Elizabeth Emma Thomas, Islington, 1808 (from Thomas J. Pettigrew's Chronicles of the Tombs, A Select Collection of Epitaphs)

 

 

 

images/MontRoyal--tombs.JPG (61861 bytes)

 Life is a jest and all things shew it:
 I thought so once, but now I know it. 

  - from the grave of John Gay, Westminster Abbey, 1732 (from   Thomas J. Pettigrew's Chronicles of the Tombs, A Select Collection of Epitaphs)

MontRoyal--view.JPG (145272 bytes)

 

 

 

 

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Epitaphs from the book Epitaphs:  A Dictionary of Grave Epigrams and Memorial Eloquence by Nigel Rees, unless otherwise noted. 

(Photos by Debra or myself, taken in the Mont Royal Cemetery, Montreal, Quebec, the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery, Montreal, Quebec, the Glenwood & St. Mary's Cemetery, Watkins Glen, N.Y., St. Mark's ? Cemetery, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario and the Lancaster Cemetery, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  Please don't use them without permission.)


These pages created by Karen Waschinski.
Questions?  Comments?  Please e-mail me at woosel[at]total.net

~~A Vampyre's Faerytale: Dà Fhaol Mharbh by Karen Waschinski (with Debra Yee)~~