Saturday 14 April 2012

A-Z Challenge: M is for Monumental Inscription

A monumental inscription is the writing on a gravestone.  Sometimes it just gives the name of the deceased and their dates, but there was quite a fashion at one time to add a scripture, or write some flowery verses.  Here are some of my favourites:

"Here lies John Yeast,
Pardon me for not rising."
Ruidoso Cemetery, New Mexico

Under the sod and under the trees
Lies the body of Jonathan Pease.
He is not here, there's only the pod:
Pease shelled out and went to God
On a grave from the 1880's in Nantucket, Massachusetts

It wasn't the cough, that carried him off. It was the coffin they carried him off in.
England

Here lies an Atheist All dressed up and no place to go.
Thurmont, Maryland

Don't weep for me, Eliza dear,
I am not dead, but sleeping here.
As I am now so you must be,
Prepare for death and follow me.

To follow you I'm not content Until I know which way you went!
Unknown

And Spike Milligan's monumental inscription: I Told You I Was Ill - but this was disallowed by St Thomas Church in Winchelsea, East Sussex.  So it was written in Irish! (Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite)

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