Thoughtful Thursday: epitaphs

On Tuesday this week I spent the better part of the day downtown, reporting some depp depos.

Although it was hot and humid -- hello? August in South Carolina? -- after being sprung from stale, airless conference-room jail I took a walk in the cemetery of the First Presbyterian Church.

Just because I knew it would make me happy.

I've shown you pictures of this gorgeous place before.

But you've never seen these pictures because I just took them on Tuesday.

An interesting 'taph in my opinion, this next, adorning covering nearly every inch of a most large and busy stone. 

I wonder how many people are buried there! I count, like, fifty names.

The thought of a grave crowded with in-laws makes me claustrophobic and nervous.

But I do love me some Kipling! What cadence; what simple majestic rhyme! A distinctly redeeming quality in this case.

I don't know how they chose which words of Kip's poem The Palace to carve into the stone, or what all the ciphers mean. I've given you the unabridged poem beneath the picture but you certainly don't have to read it.

Photo Jennifer Weber 2010

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When I was a King and a Mason -- a master proven and skilled --
I cleared me ground for a Palace such as a King should build.
I decreed and cut down to my levels, and presently, under the silt,
I came on the wreck of a Palace such as a King had built.

There was no worth in the fashion -- there was no wit in the plan --
Hither and thither, aimless, the ruined footings ran --
Masonry, brute, mishandled; but carven on every stone: 
"After me cometh a Builder. Tell him I, too, have known."
Swift to my use in my trenches, where my well-planned ground-works grew, 
I tumbled his quoins and ashlars, and cut and reset them anew. 
Lime I milled of his marbles; burned it, slacked it and spread; 
Taking and leaving at pleasure the gifts of the humble dead.
Yet I despised not nor gloried; yet as we wrenched them apart, 
I read in the razed foundations the heart of that builder’s heart. 
As though he had risen and pleaded, so did I understand 
The form of the dream he had followed in the face of the thing he had planned.
When I was King and a Mason -- in the open noon of my pride,
They sent me a Word from the Darkness -- They whispered and called me aside.
They said -- "The end is forbidden." They said -- "Thy use is fulfilled,
"And thy Palace shall stand as that other’s -- the spoil of a King who shall build."

I called my men from my trenches, my quarries, my wharves and my sheers. 
All I had wrought I abandoned to the faith of the faithless years. 
Only I cut on the timber -- only I carved on the stone: 
"After me cometh a Builder. Tell him I, too, have known."

~Rudyard Kipling~

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I confess I liked this simple 'taph better:

Photo Jennifer Weber 2010

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Not to mention the poignancy of THIS and THIS:

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And the sweet sorrowfulness of the simple OUR TWIN BABES etched into a little listing cross:

Photo Jennifer Weber 2010

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I wish you a thankful and thoughtful Thursday!

What's left of it.

Comments

[Donna M.]

I love to investigate old cemetaries! Thank you for sharing some interesting headstones in your area!

[Mari]

I love your cemetery posts! These epitaphs are really neat!

[Debbie]

"Love Never Dies". I like that. If I were going to be buried I might use that. But hubby and I have decided to be cremated.

[Debbie]

Oops, it said "Love Never ENDS", not love never dies, but the sentiment is the same.

[Jennifer]

Donna M ... I love it when I discover a fellow taphophile!

Mari ... thanks luv. I think so too.

Debbie ... cremated? Interesting! And the sentiment does work the same either way!

[Donna (Texas)]

Our Twin Babes got me.....Lord, how sad is That?!!
Love these Miz Jennifer!
hughugs