Grave good

“ The whole is executed with terrible truth and spirit; we almost fancy we hear the gibbering yell of triumph bursting from the distended jaws of the spectre. But why should we thus seek to clothe death with unnecessary terrors, and to spread horrors round the tomb of those we love? The grave should be surrounded by everything that might inspire tenderness and veneration for the dead, or that might win the living to virtue. It is the place not of disgust and dismay, but of sorrow and meditation. ”

“ Peace is in the grave.
The grave hides all things beautiful and good:
I am a God and cannot find it there, _640
Nor would I seek it: for, though dread revenge,
This is defeat, fierce king, not victory. ”

“ Behind us lies the whole long grim past, a huge grave, with countless gravestones—the silent city of the dead which holds all that has been ever dear to the heart, all youth with their glad faces and forms, all glances of love, all divine moments. And all the dead compel all the living to conflict that the living may be controlled by life and not by death. From their graves the dead direct their deadliest shafts at the heart, at the living, to drag them down into the embrace of death. But something stirs in man that cannot be wounded, cannot be buried—man’s will. ”

“ No, there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living. Oh, the grave! the grave! It buries every error, covers every defect, extinguishes every resentment! From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down upon the grave even of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies mouldering before him? ”

“ And vain, vainer still was the human heart's sighing,
That one so beloved, and so lovely, should pass.
The grave is an altar, whereon the heart proffers
Its feverish pleasures, its troubles, its woes;
Stern, silent, and cold, the dark sanctuary proffers
Its gloomy return of unbroken repose.
How much of the sorrow that life may inherit,
That early departure to slumber will save;
The hope that drags onward the world weary spirit,
Rests but when its fever is quenched in the grave.
Weep not for the dead with a fruitless recalling,
Their soul on the wings of the morning hath fled ”

“ On the deathless page, truths half so sage As he wrote down for men. And had he not high honor,— The hillside for a pall, To lie in state while angels wait With stars for tapers tall, And the dark rock-pines like tossing plumes, Over his bier to wave, And God's own hand, in that lonely land, To lay him in the grave? In that strange grave without a name, Whence his uncoffin'd clay Shall break again, O wondrous thought! Before the judgment day, And stand with glory wrapt around On the hills he never trod, And speak of the strife that won our life With the Incarnate Son of God. ”

“ After all, the promises are so far away, and the dead are so near—the echoes of words said to have been spoken more than eighteen centuries ago are lost in the sounds of the clods that fall on the coffin, And yet, compared with the orthodox hell, compared with the prison-house of God, how ecstatic is the grave—the grave without a sigh, without a tear, without a dream, without a fear. ”

“ The grave is better than o'erburdened life;
Better the quick release of glorious wounds,
Than the eternal taunts of galling tongues;
Better the spear-head quivering in the heart,
Than daily struggle against fortune's curse;
Better, in manhood's muscle and high blood,
To leap the gulf, than totter to its edge
In poverty, dull pain, and base decay. ”

“ and though I must be content to bear with those that say you are reverend grave men, yet they lie deadly that tell you have good faces. ”

“ For the grave could not be filled in,—endlessly, endlessly, masses of earth, soaked by holy blood of martyrs, rolled upon the coffin, and yet the grave remained open,—the lid of the coffin trembles, quivers, opens, burst by the giant breast, which is still alive and teeming with strength,—and the bells boom and boom, flung to and fro by the tempest of vengeance, of requital, of a distant hope fervid with victory. ”

“ Where shall we find a grave for you?
They thought of a spirit as brave as light,
And they bore him up to a lonely height,
And they laid him there, where he loved to be,
On a mountain gazing o'er the sea! ”

“ I have spoken of such persons passing on to the brink of the grave, and I have used this expression, because, I believe the grave has terrors, even to them; that when one earthly hold after another gives way, and health declines, and fashionable friends fall off, and death sits beckoning on the tomb-stones of their newly buried associates and relatives; I believe there is often a fearful questioning, about the realities of eternal things, and chiefly about the religion, which in idea they had set apart for the poor, the aged, and the disconsolate, but would none of it themselves. ”

“ Hope is the boy, a blind, headlong, pleasant fellow, good to chase swallows with the salt; Faith is the grave, experienced, yet smiling man. Hope lives on ignorance; open-eyed Faith is built upon a knowledge of our life, of the tyranny of circumstance and the frailty of human resolution. ”

“ I reflected on many a country walk in England, culminating in a visit to an old church and graveyard, and the tracing of the names and dates of people long since passed away. It is somewhat strange. When we are in an old graveyard and looking at the graves of people who have died centuries ago we feel, instead of grief, a sort of quiet satisfaction, and that even when those whose burial is recorded are of our own name and family. We dare not even contrast our feeling with the poignancy that is attached to a new grave—with its garish stone, fresh clods, and wilted flowers. ”

“ The reason of this is, for man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets. The grave, said Job, is my house, and soon the funeral proclamation must be repeated over us, Dust thou art, and unto dust shall thou return. The grave is the home for the body, when once it comes there, as long as there is any dust to cover it, or heavens to surround it, Man lieth down, and riseth not till the Heavens be no more; they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep till death is swallowed up in victory. ”

“ When ‘tis uncertain y’ave an hour behind
That you can call your own: for though y’are fair,
Charming and kind as Guardian Agnels are,
Adorn’d by Nature, fitted out by Art
In all the glories that delude the heart;
Yet tell me, tell, have they the power to save?
Or can they privilege you from the Grave?
The Grave which favors not the rich, or fair;
Beauty with Beast lies undistinguish’d there. ”

“ What will the righteous do upon rising from the grave?
“Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.” Isa. 26:19.
20. In what words will their triumph over death and the grave be expressed?
“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” 1 Cor. 15:55.
21. How long will they live?
“Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.” ”

“ Above the common level of our kind;
The Grave gainsays the smooth-complexion'd flat'ry,
And with blunt truth acquaints us what we are.
⁠Beauty—thou pretty play thing, dear deceit,
That steals so softly o'er the stripling's heart,
And gives it a new pulse, unknown before,
The Grave discredits thee: thy charms expung'd,
Thy roses faded, and thy lilies soil'd,
What hast thou more to boast of? Will thy Lovers,
Flock round thee now, and gaze to do thee homage? ”

“ But in all these shapes had the grim inevitable Lord of the grave seemed less terrible than when waiting through the livelong night, with the certainty of being murdered, unresisting, on the morning.
Active exertion, gallant daring, the exercise of the high powers of the soul, set at nought the idea of annihilation; and when, with eager fire, man puts forth all his faculties in the moment of danger, their very possession tells him that he is immortal, and makes the open gate of the tomb appear but the portal of a better world. ”

“ I did not forget to look, as I passed along, at the rose bush which I saw planted by a widow at the grave of her rum-murdered husband. It was growing fresh and vigorously.
Now we stand around the open grave that is soon to be filled by another victim of a trade that feeds scores and starves millions—that saves one life and causes a thousand deaths—that consigns youth, innocence and beauty, equally with old age, to a premature grave. Now we lower this last victim—still young, beautiful, intelligent, full of sweetness of disposition and kindness of heart—into her grave. ”

“ Death is sufficiently terrible in itself, and the grave in its best form has enough of horror to make the stoutest heart quail at the thought, but nothing I have seen or read of can equal the Campo Santo for the most loathsome and disgusting mode of burial. ”

“ Better cast stones and nettles than those withered flowers. Your boy has escaped this poor man’s destiny—the worst of deaths! His was the happiest! he died—smiling—on his fond mother’s bosom! But there is a grave around which weeds grow more luxuriantly, than about the sepulchre where mortal dust reposes. Daily watchfulness is required to prevent the bright creations therein buried, from being so over-run until nothing is seen to designate the beautiful tomb, where we had carefully embalmed them, as if in amber. ”

“ The man of hoary hairs stood over the graves of the tender infant, and felt sensibly, that while the "young may die, the old must die."
The parents cast a long lingering look into the greedy grave that was forever to hide their treasure from their sight, then turned sadly away to walk again the pathway of human life, and receive the portion their heavenly Father may see fit to meet out to them. ”

“ There will be separations at the graves of those who lay side by side in death; many a tomb will yield up subjects both for heaven and for hell; the differences in character, between the regenerate and unregenerate, will there be made conspicuous in the correspondence of the risen body to the soul, according as the soul shall have arrived at the grave from a state of joy or of woe. ”

“ The grave, kinder to them than the Church, united them for ever; and now a man of another age and nation, touched with their fate, has laboured to build their tombstone, and rescue them from long and unmerited oblivion. ”

“ The grave, without respect of persons, confronts us all with its awe-inspiring illimitable beyond; and we cannot, if we would, brought up as we have been to possess long-standing associations on the side of Christian truth, and in harmony with the voice of conscience and the higher aspirations and presentiments of the soul, bring ourselves to believe that we shall not reap hereafter as we have sown here. ”

“ The little grave is a sacred place. The Lord of glory has passed into the sepulchre, and from it he has opened up the path of life. Hope blooms there, and hearts-ease and amaranth blossom amid the shadows that linger over it, and Jesus watches his treasures and counts his jewels in the little graves. ”

“ And now a new wave of approaching humanity. The impossible becomes possible, the students crowd past us and gather about the grave. The coffin is lifted over our heads and into the noose of the dull gravedigger. ”

“ I have but a few words to say—I am going to my cold and silent grave—my lamp of life is nearly extinguished—I have parted with everything that was dear to me in this life, and for my country's cause with the idol of my soul, the object of my affections. My race is run—the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom. ”

“ Indeed, so callous is his heart, so wilfully blind is he to every thing tending to his future welfare, that the tombs, those standing monuments of mortality, cannot move him: even the new-dug grave, the sculls and bones, those lively and awakening monitors, cannot rouse him from his sinful lethargy, open his eyes, or pierce his heart with the least reflection; so hardened is he with vice, and so intent on the pursuit of his evil course. ”

“ O that thou wouldst hide me in the grave! The grave is not only a resting-place, but a hiding-place, to the people of God. God has the key of the grave, to let in now and to let out at the resurrection. He hides men in the grave, as we hide our treasure in a place of secresy and safety ”

“ A few creep into their beds of dust under the burden of old age and the gradual decays of nature. In short, the grave is the place appointed for all living; the general rendezvous of all the sons of Adam. ”

“ All henceforth and forever yielded up to God, no more to be ours, as really and as perfectly as though we were breathing our last upon our death-bed, and then in due time we were laid into our coffin, the lid fastened down, and lowered into the grave, the grave filled up and nothing left but a mound to mark where our earthly remains lie. ”

“ I know not what dear departed form, whose grave is already sunk as deep as itself, I may not, like a dream, raise up on its burial place and show anew to your tearful eyes, and of how many dead a single grave may be the reminder. ”

“ The grave seems to me a vile pitfall, put right in our pathway, and catching most of us,–all of us,–causing us to tumble in at the most inconvenient opportunities, so that all human life is a jest and a farce, just for the sake of this inopportune death ”