Memorial Verses

[trevornbond]

Hello all,

I hope this is in the right place - if a moderator feels the need to move it, then many thanks in advance of finding it an appropriate home.

As I mentioned in the ‘hello’ thread, I am currently researching a family who are buried in the Roman Catholic Cemetery in Leytonstone, East London. Theirs is a four-sided monument, and on two of the sides are engraved two verses. I am looking for any background on these, and have been unable to find them in any of the reference works I have available. I wonder whether they or their source might be familiar to Catholics here.

The verses in question are:

1. He is not dead the one we mourn, with deep but patient sorrow, his spirit has but come to dwell, where ours may be to-morrow (I absolutely adore this verse, as it happens).
2. Rest in peace my dearest wife, God has willed that we must part, but in heaven we hope to meet you, near our Lord’s sacred heart

I look forward to hearing from someone, and many thanks for any help you can offer,

Trevor.

 

[Mintaka]

I found a longer version of the one poem in the April 17, 1898 edition of The Cincinnati Enquirer (that’s a newspaper that’s still around). There’s a trial membership thing you can sign up for if you want to see the actual page, but the OCR text was clear enough to get this. So possibly you can ask at a university library about finding the poem, as universities subscribe to a big English poetry/literature database with a lot of stuff in it that isn’t online on the normal Internet.

He is not dead, the one we mourn
In deep but chastened sorrow.
His spirit has but gone to dwell
Where ours may be to-morrow.
There cometh over in our grief -
Amidst our sighs and weeping, -
The blessed and consoling thought
“He is not dead, but sleeping.”

Each day doth nature’s voice proclaim
The old but wondrous story
Of how the sun must set in gloom
To rise again in glory.
The seed must molder in the dust
To bring a joyous reaping.
Then let us wait the harvest day:
“He is not dead, but sleeping!”

The July 11, 1947 Press Gazette (also from Ohio) had the following verse right before the “He is not dead” verse you quoted, but nothing else from the poem. They might be two separate poems, or part might be a prologue.

Dear father, we must give thee up
To sleep beneath the sod;
But we must drink the bitter cup
And put our trust in God.
Help us, oh God, with power divine
To gain that heavenly shore
Where we may meet our father dear
Where parting is no more.

 

[trevornbond]

Mintaka,

That is really very useful, thank you ever so much. I shall indeed try to track down the true attribution for the poem, which now I have the whole piece will surely be much easier.

For now, it seems to me that seen its in entirety the poem seems to be based on the incident with Jesus and the young girl, as told in Mark 5:38-42, Matthew 9:23-26 and Luke 8:49-56. Would you or anyone have any thoughts on the significance of those passages, and whether they are common or not to be incorporated into memorials, or funeral readings or the like?

I did find one webpage that states that in Mark Jesus says the girl is ‘only sleeping’ whereas in Matthew and Luke he acknowledges that she is in fact dead, but I have looked through a few different versions now and the ‘sleeping’ reference seems to appear in all three gospels. Am I missing something, or was the webpage just wrong?

Anything on specific Catholic interpretations of this passage, and how they differ from Anglican interpretations, would be particularly useful.

As ever, any info appreciated.