Etc. [pp. 104-109]

1885.]
"Sixteen years I lived a maid,
Two years I was a wife,
Five hours I was a mother,
And so I lost my life.
MIy babe lies by me, as you see,
To show no age from Death is free."
Several stones near each other bear inscriptions
that evidently emanated from the same source; some
of them are as follows:
"One day in health I did appear,
The next a corpse fit for the bier."
"Friends and brothers, see where I lie;
Remember you are born to die."
"What hidden terror death doth bring,
It takes the Peasant and the King;
Then prepare, both one and all,
For to be readv when God doth call."
A stone for a young lady of twenty-four years
bears this couplet:
"Sleep on, sweet babe, till Jesus comes
And raises all from sleeping tombs."
The following, although inscribed with no regard
to orthography or measure, was evidently selected by
one of high poetic feeling:
"Life's a journey! Man the rugged path with hope
and fear alternate travels on: but e'er his journey half is
o'er, grim death, like a villian in the dark, lets fly his
quivering dart: the traveller falls."
Here are two that may have been written by the
same hand:
"No. I'll repine at death no more,
But with a cheerfiulgasp resign
To the cold dungeon of the ground
These dying, withering limbs of mine."
"My flesh shall slumber in the ground
Till the last Trumpet's joyful sound;
Then burst the Chains of Sweet Surprise
And in my Savior's image rise."
The epitaph of a clergyman who died at the age
of twenty-seven, which was, as is certified on the
same stone, composed by himself on his death-bed,
reads as follows:
How short, how precarious, how uncertain is life!
How quick the transition from time to eternity. A
breath, a gasp, a groan, and, lo, we're seen no more.
And yet on this point, oh, alarming thought, on this
slender point swings a vast eternity."
Following the ordinary inscription of name, date
of death, age, etc., on the headstone of one who
was found dead one morning, having evidently fallen
to the ground from outside stairs leading to a house
door, are these lines:
7tC.
109
"No cordial to revive his heart,
No one to hold his head,
No friend to close his dying eyes,
The ground was his death-bed."
One'stone is erected "In memory of Mr. Timothy
Moses and his wives." Aftel stating that he died
August 25, A. D. I787, aged 8i, it gives the names,
dates of death, and ages of four of his wives, and
states.that "Mrs. Mary ye 5th Survives." Stones
for the first two wives stand beside his, but evidently
the expenses for such momentoes became after this
too much for Timothy to bear.
Not far away stand the memorial stones of a man
and three wives-one of which wives died within a
year of a former one, and I was told that he left two
more survivors-one divorced and one his widow.
Idleness.
ALL the poets of the Present,
Practical, and worldly-wise,
Write in rhyme of city customs,
City cares, and city lies;
Or describe a brief vacation,
And conventional flirtation.
What are these? Come, let us ramble
In the dear and olden way
Down the quiet, country meadows,
Bright with blossomed flowers of May;
In the pleasant summer weather
Let us spend an hour together.
How the light of noon-day lingers
On the creamy four o'clocks!
How the breeze from piny forest
Every grass-blade lightly rocks!
All the world is young together
In this early summer weather.
Here we'll dally by the brookside
Where the sun upon it lies,
While the wary trout goes flashing
Past us as the lightning flies;
We'll be friends with him together
In this friendly summer weather.
And perchance, we may discover,
Idly basking'neath the brake,
Streaked and striped with brown and yellow,
Some reposing water-snake;
We will pause awhile together
In this careless summer weather.
Blue above, serene and cloudless
Spread the heavens overhead;
Here we'll lie among the clover,
Here we'll make our fragrant bed;
With the bees and birds together
We will spend the summer weather.