Erth goyth upon erth as mold upon mold, Erth goyth upon erth al glisteryng in gold, As though erth to erth ner turne shold, And yet must erth to erth soner than he wolde. Formerly on a headstone in St. James’s Churchyard, Clerkenwell, deciphered about 1812, but already lost in 1851, probably owing to the dismantling of the churchyard. (Cf. _Notes and Queries_, III. i. 389):-- Earth walks on Earth like glittering gold; Earth says to Earth ‘We are but mold’. Earth builds on Earth castles & towers; Earth says to Earth, ‘All shall be ours!’ Formerly on a tombstone at St. Martin’s, Ludgate, to Florens Caldwell esq. of London & Ann Mary Wilde, his wife (Pettigrew, p. 67)[26]:-- Earth goes to Earth, as mold to mold; Earth treads on Earth, glittering in gold: Earth as to Earth returne ne’er shoulde; Earth shall to Earth goe e’er he wolde. Earth upon Earth consyder may; Earth goes to Earth naked away. Earth though on Earth be stowt & gay Earth shall from Earth passe poore away. Be mercifull & charitable, Relieve the poor as thou art able. A shrowd to the grave Is all thou shalt have. This interesting monument has unfortunately disappeared. Doubtless there are many other traces of the poem to be found, but it appears to have been rarely used on tombstones after 1700,[27] and earlier monuments, unless specially preserved, are rarely decipherable at the present day. LITERARY INTEREST. _Erthe upon Erthe_ cannot be said to possess great literary value in itself. The interest of the poem lies chiefly in its evident popularity, and in the insight it gives into the kind of literature which became popular in the Middle Ages. It belongs essentially to the same class as the _Soul and Body_ Poems, and the _Dance of Death_. In the early days of its introduction into Western Europe, Christianity made great use in its appeal to the mass of the people of the fear of death and dread of the Judgement. The early monastic writers dwelt upon the idea of man’s mortality and decay, and the transitoriness of human rank and pleasure. Hence the frequency with which such themes as the _Dance of Death_ were treated in literature and in art. Closely allied with this idea of the fleeting nature of earthly things, and to some extent a result of it, was the conception of the separation of man’s bodily from his spiritual self which pervades all mediaeval post-Christian literature. In Old English times already, this sense of a sharp division between the two is embodied in No. xliv of the O.E. _Riddles_:--