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| John Payson, 1804, Fitchburg, MA, photo by RJO |
The young man faileth,
his strength ceaseth,
he dieth,
and is no more;
but his hope is in God.
his strength ceaseth,
he dieth,
and is no more;
but his hope is in God.
I haven't come across any other pattern poems on New England gravestones. Has anyone else spotted other examples?
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| photo by RJO |
5 comments:
What is the shape suppose to represent? A bell? Or is it just a shape?
Also, does the six-pointed star have a particular symbolic meaning or purpose? It shows up over and over again in your photos, most of the time with a point pointing straight up.
I'm glad you found this one interesting. I'd be very interested to know of other pattern-examples, or to know the source of these lines (if they have a literary source--I haven't been able to find one).
As the town's ministerial family I assume they would have been more literate than usual and so might have been drawn to a device of this kind. It could be an original composition, I suppose, but it also seems like it might be a stock verse/expression.
I'd have thought it a butterfly, whichc is a symbol of the resurresction.
Is it either a chalice or Chi Rho?
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