Monday, July 18, 2011

Mary Minerva Garlick, newlywed

The first thing I noticed about this gravestone was its striking urn-and-willow carving. Then I read the inscription. Mary Minerva Garlick (b. 1820, d. 1840) was married less than six months when she died.


MARY, MANERVA,
WIFE OF
CARMI. P. GARLICK,
Born June 19th 1820:
Married mar 21st 1840,
DIED SEPT. 9th 1840,
AGED 20 YEARS 2
Months 21 days.


The epitaph, badly weathered in spots, is taken from this verse of the long poem Pleasures of Hope by Scottish poet Thomas Campbell (b. 1777, d. 1844):

“And weep not thus,” he cried, “young Ellenore;
My bosom bleeds, but soon shall bleed no more!
Short shall this half-extinguished spirit burn,
And soon these limbs to kindred dust return!

But not, my child, with life’s precarious fire,
The immortal ties of Nature shall expire;
These shall resist the triumph of decay,
When time is o’er, and worlds have pass’d away;
Cold in the dust this perish’d heart may lie,
But that which warm’d it once shall never die!

That spark unburied in its mortal frame,
With living light, eternal, and the same,
Shall beam on Joy’s interminable years,
Unveil’d by darkness — unassuag’d by tears!



Bonus links
Carmi Garlick on FindAGrave.com
The Pleasures of Hope by Thomas Campbell


Union Township Cemetery, Union County, Ohio

1 comment:

  1. I'm always surprised when I see stones that the carver had to make room for. Sometimes words are added with a carat.

    I love it that you have a new post every day.

    ReplyDelete

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