OUR FAVOURITE EPITAPHS
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I know I am deathless.
I know this orbit of mine
cannot be swept by a carpenter’s compass.
All goes outward and nothing collapses,
and to die is different
from what anyone supposed...and luckier.
~ Walt Whitman
(From an urn at Lake View Cemetery - Cleveland, Ohio)
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"Nothing is grander than to break chains from the bodies of men —
nothing nobler than to destroy the phantoms of the soul."
(Robert G. Ingersoll stone - Arlington National Cemetery - Arlington, Virginia)
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VITA MUTATUR NON TOLLITUR
Translation: Life is changed, not taken away
(Colson memorial - Forest Lawn Cemetery - Buffalo, New York)
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It depends on those who pass
Whether I am a tomb or treasure
Whether I speak or am silent.
The choice is yours alone.
Friend, do not enter without desire.
(Verse by Paul Valery on the wall of a library & archives in Paris)
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That what we call corruption
they know to be a marriage rich in birth
(Jacobson stone - Oakwood Cemetery - Syracuse, New York)
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Even the angels
Forget their services and about her fly
Oft peering on her face that seems more fair
The more they on it stare
(Murchie stone - Forest Hills Cemetery - Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts)
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Pendant que je restais en bas dans l’ombre noire
d’autres montaient cueielir le baiser de la gloirie
~ Cyrano de Bergerac
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While I remained at the bottom in dark shadow
others ascended to know the kiss of glory
(Wigglesworth stone - Oakwood Cemetery - Syracuse, New York)
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He has crossed the river of life,
And has received the crown of
Immortality
(Forest Hills Cemetery - Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts)
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All wasting here, I lie alone
from spring to spring
nor hear the wintry winds make moan,
the joyous lark take wing.
But when the pollen softly blows,
say over me a prayer:
that whither my vagrant spirit goes,
love may be there.
(Truesdell memorial - Oakwood Cemetery - Syracsue, New York)
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Earth brings us into life and back again,
Earth and death are present in every moment
(Lowson Memorial Plaque - Fern Hill Section
Forest Hills Cemetery - Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts)
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"I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore."
(Excerpt from Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "Sudden Light"
Musgrave Monument - Woodlawn Cemetery - Colma, California)
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"Love is the emblem of eternity; it confounds all notion of time;
effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end."
(Quoted from Anne Louise Germaine De Stael
Wiatrowski monument - Forest Lawn Cemetery - Buffalo, New York)
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Dark deep and forbidden chasm
Lies beneath the stars
for a spectral mockery of life.
Death and
darkness beyond
the setting sun do lie
marking the bane of human life
the end.
The lands of shadow lie
far beyond the call of
mortal man's life
beckoning man
onward.
Death is
the eternal dark
of man's splendid hopes and
dreams of eternal salvation.
(Written by the 13 year old son of the decedent
Emery ledger - Woodlawn Cemetery - Toledo, Ohio)
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Say not Good Night
But in some bright
And fairer clime
Bid me Good Morning
(Foster memorial - Forest Hills Cemetery - Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts)
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Many waters cannot quench love,
Neither can the flood drown it.
Love is strong as death.
(From an urn - Forest Hills Columbarium - Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts)
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Only the radiance of eternity
can dismiss the silence of a world
without you....my love!
(Written by Joan Lampert for her husband and inscribed inside a mausoleum
at Mount Auburn Cemetery - Cambridge, Massachusetts)
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So fly on beyond the sun
Where speed and distance all are one
(Front of stone)
T’is finally the man who plays
In the many games of life
That one where what he
Most doth value must be won
Whom no shape of danger
Can dismay.
(Back of stone)
In loving memory
His mother
(Edward Thaw, Jr. Monument - Pilot
killed in a plane crash
Forest Hills Cemetery - Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts)
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Death is but
the gate of
another and a
fairer sunrise
(From a memorial at Mount Auburn Cemetery - Cambridge, Massachusetts)
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Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain,
Heart's love will meet thee again.
(Collier memorial - Mount Auburn Cemetery - Cambridge, Massachusetts)
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Weep not for those whom the veil of the tomb
in life’s happy morning hath hid from our eyes
Ere sin threw a blight o’er the spirit’s young bloom
or earth had profaned what was born for the skies
(From a child's monument in Forest Hills Cemetery - Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts)
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Rest after weariness
Peace after pain
(From a stone at Mount Auburn Cemetery - Cambridge, Massachusetts)
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These bodies from the dust
Shall rise
And dwell where pleasure
Never dies
(Scammon stone - Forest Hills Cemetery - Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts)
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He has gone down to the sea again.
His sails are set and his wind is true.
(Bullard stone - Mount Auburn Cemetery - Cambridge, Massachusetts)
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Him nature giveth for defence
his formidable innocence;
The mountain sap, the shells, the sea
all spheres, all stones his helpers be;
He shall meet the speeding year
without wailing, without fear;
He shall be happy in his love,
like to like shall joyful prove.
(Excerpt from Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Woodnotes II"
on Bullard stone - Mount Auburn Cemetery - Cambridge, Massachusetts)
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I am only going into another room
(From a stone at Mount Auburn Cemetery - Cambridge, Massachusetts)
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As bowed by sudden storms the rose
Sinks on the garden's breast,
Down to the grave our sister goes
In silence there to rest
(From a monument to "Emeline and her children" - Mount Auburn Cemetery - Cambridge, Massachusetts)
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Gone to Him who loves her best
In the hazel dell my Myra's sleeping
(From a monument in Mount Auburn Cemetery - Cambridge, Massachusetts)
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And wheresoe'er she met a stranger,
there she left a friend
(From a monument in Mount Auburn Cemetery - Cambridge, Massachusetts)
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Nearer the “Great White Throne,”
Nearer the “Jasper Sea.”
(De Friez Monument - Forest Hills Cemetery - Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts)
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None know life’s secret
But the happy dead.
(Lovering stone - Forest Hills Cemetery - Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts)
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The silver cord is loosed and the
golden bowl is broken.
The dust returns to the earth
as it was and the spirit returns
unto God who gave it.
(From a stone in Mount Auburn Cemetery - Cambridge, Massachusetts)
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There is no death.
What seems so is
Transition.
(Bitman Stone - Forest Hills Cemetery - Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts)
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All that live must die,
passing thro' nature to eternity
(From a stone at Mount Auburn Cemetery - Cambridge, Massachusetts)
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It lies with death to take the beauty,
but not the gracious memory of her.
(Milmore Memorial Bench - Forest Hills Cemetery - Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts)
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“Come, stay your hand, Death to the sculptor cried,
Those who are sleeping, have not really died.
I am the answer to the stone your fingers
have carved, the baffling riddle that still lingers
Sphinx unto curious men. So do not fear
this gentle touch. I hold dark poppies here
whose languid leaves of lethargy will bring
deep sleep to you and an incredible spring!
Come with your soul, from earth’s still blinded hour.
Mount by my hand the high, the timeless tower!
Through me the night and morning are made one,
your questions answered, your long vigil done.
Who am I? On far paths no foot has trod,
some call me Death, but others call me God.”
(Milmore Monument - "Death and the Sculptor" - Forest Hills Cemetery - Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts)
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Into Thy loving care
Into Thy keeping
Thou Who are everywhere
Take us while sleeping
(Schwarz memorial stained glass window - Rosehill Mausoleum - Chicago, Illinois)
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He embraced life
And all its mysteries
(Jackiw stone – Saint Nicholas Ukrainian Cemetery – Des Plaines, Illinois)
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And there will come the night when all
who love this sacred place shall have
passed into eternity and only that which
they have given away shall remain
(Dell monument – Rosehill Cemetery – Chicago, Illinois)
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To the end and beyond the end
(Hrejsa monument – Bohemian National Cemetery – Chicago, Illinois)
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Is it well with the child?
And she answered, it is well. ~ Book of Kings 4:26
(Infant Harry F. Starr stone – Oakland Cemetery – Sandusky, Ohio)
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But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still! ~Tennyson
(Crypt in The Abbey Mausoleum - Forest Park Lawndale - Houston, Texas)
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There is no death!
What seems so is transition.
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life
Elysian,
Whose portal we call death.
(Henry and Amelia Coy stone - Woodlawn Cemetery - Sandusky, Ohio)
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Dearest Brother the tie is broken
And I alone must roam
Till we meet on that shore
With other loved ones gone before
(George Mizen stone - Oakwood Cemetery - Sharon, Pennsylvania)
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© 2006