July 29, 2010

Death is not the end; it is the intermission.

"For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it

may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?"

~Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Requiescat

Strew on her roses, roses and never a spray of yew!

In quiet she reposes: Ah! would that I did too!

Her mirth the world required: She bathed it in smiles of glee.

But her heart was tired, tired, and now they let her be.

Her life was turning, turning, in mazes of heat and sound.

But for peace her soul was yearning, and now peace laps her round.

Her cabin'd, ample spirit, it flutter'd and fail'd for breath.

To-night it doth inherit the vasty hall of death.

  ~Matthew Arnold

"...One by one they were all becoming shades.  Better to pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.  He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover's eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live."

  ~James Joyce, The Dead; The Dubliners

And death shall have no dominion.

Dead men naked they shall be one

With the man in the wind and the west moon;

When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;

Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion.

 ~Dylan Thomas, And Death Shall Have No Domion, first stanza

"...Now that she was gone he understood how lonely her life must have been, sitting night after night alone in that room.  His life would be lonely too until he, too, died, ceased to exist, became a memory--if anyone remembered him."

"He turned back the way he had come, the rhythm of the engine pounding in his ears.  He began to doubt the reality of what his memory told him.  He halted under a tree and allowed the rhythm to die away.  He could not feel her near him in the darkness nor her voice touch his ear.  He waited for some minutes, listening.  He could hear nothing:  the night was perfectly silent.  He listened again: perfectly silent.  He felt that he was alone."

   ~James Joyce, A Painful Case, The Dubliners

Safe in Their Alabaster Chambers--

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers--

Untouched by Morning

And untouched by Noon--

Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection--

Rafter of satin,

And Roof of stone.

Light laughs the breeze

In her Castle above them--

Babbles the Bee in a stolid Ear,

Pipe the Sweet Birds in ignorant cadence--

Ah, what sagacity perished here.

   ~Emily Dickinson,  as written in 1859

EPITAPH TO A DOG

Near this spot

Are deposited the Remains

of one

Who possessed Beauty

Without Vanity,

Strength without Insolence,

Courage without Ferocity,

And all the Virtues of Man

Without his Vices.

This Praise, which would be unmeaning flattery

If inscribed over Human Ashes,

Is but a just tribute to the Memeory of

"Boatswain," a Dog

Who was born at Newdoundland,

May, 1803,

And died at Newstead Abby

Nov. 18, 1808.

{This is Lord Byron's tribute to his dog, "Boatswain," written on a monument in the garden of Newstead Abby.  There is an accompanying poem but it is a bit lengthy and emotional so I did not include it.}

"...Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland.  It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and , farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves.  It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Micheal Furey lay buried.  It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstone, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns.  His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."

   ~James Joyce, The Dead, The Dubliners

All the photographs were taken at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia,

July 2, 2010 by Katy-jean Adams (c)