Gleanings in Graveyards: A Collection of Curious EpitaphsNorfolk, Horatio Edward
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Gleanings in Graveyards: A Collection of Curious Epitaphs
Norfolk, Horatio Edward
Epitaphs; Epitaphs -- Great Britain
My dearest dust, could not thy hasty day
Afford thy drowsy patience leave to stay
One hour longer, so that we might either
Have set up, or gone to bed together!
But since thy finished labour hath possessed
Thy weary limbs with early rest,
Enjoy it sweetly, and thy widow bride
Shall soon repose her by thy slumbering side!
Whose business now is to prepare
My nightly dress and call to prayer.
Mine eyes wax heavy, and the days grow old,
The dew falls thick—my blood grows cold:—
Draw, draw the closed curtains, and make room,
My dear, my dearest dust, I come, I come.
EDWORTH.
Here lies father, and mother, and sister, and I,
We all died within the space of one year,
They be all buried at Whimble except I,
And I be buried here.
LUTON.
In the “Wenlock Chapel” in the above church, on an embattled altar-tomb
is a recumbent figure of a priest—representing William Wenlock, who died
1392. Round the verge of the tomb is inscribed, in ancient characters,—
. . . . Ilemus hic tumulatus de Wenlock natus; in ordine
presbiteratus; alter hujus ille: dominus meus fuit ville: hic jacet
indignus: anime Deus esto benignus!
On the side of the tomb,—
In Wenlock brad I: in this town lordshcippes had I! here am I now
lady: Christes moder help me lady. Under these stones: for a tym
shal I rest my bones; deyn mot I ned ones. Myghtful God gra’t me thy
woues. Ame’.
Formerly in a window of this chapel was a portrait of Wenlock, with the
following inscription:—
Jesu Christ, most of might,
Have mercy on John de Wenlock, knight,
And of his wife Elizabeth,
Which out of this world is passed by death,
Which founded this chapel here,
Help thou them with your hearty prayer,
That they may come unto that place,
Where ever is joy and solace.
On an altar-tomb in the tower is the following:—
Thomas Gilbert here doth stai
Waiting for God’s judgment day,
Who died August 25, 1566.
A slab on the floor of the south aisle bears this inscription,—
Here lyeth the body of Daniel Knight,
Who all my lifetime lived in spite.
Base flatterers sought me to undoe,
And made me sign what was not true.
Reader take care, whene’er you venture
To trust a canting false dessenter,
Who died June 11th, in the 61st year of his age,
1756.
A friend of Daniel Knight (at whose instigation the above epitaph was
engraved during his lifetime, and the future tombstone used as a cupboard
door) prepared an inscription for his own tomb,—
“Here lies the body of Thomas Proctor
Who lived and died without a doctor.”
But fate, jealous of the reputation of the faculty, broke his leg, and
compelled him to sacrifice to Æsculapius.
Berkshire.
BUCKLEBURY.
Here lyeth the body of Samuel Wightwicke, Esqre. 1662.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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