Remembrance

“ In the hour of my death, I shall hold sacred the one good remembrance—and shall thank and bless you for it—that my last avowal of myself was made to you, and that my name, and faults, and miseries were gently carried in your heart. ”

“ How often will the remembrance only of one bright spot—a vision of Paradise rising over the dull waste of my existence—send a glow of comfort to my aged heart, and a fresh feeling of repose which the harsh business of life cannot extinguish or disturb! ”

“ Thus may one moment minister to years; and the life-wearied heart of old age by one delightful remembrance be restored to primal joy—the glory of the past brought beamingly upon the faded present—and the world that is obscurely passing away from our eyes re-illumined with the visions of its early morn. The shows of nature are indeed evanescent, but their spiritual influences are immortal; and from that grove now glowing in the sunlight may your heart derive a delight that shall utterly perish but in the grave. ”

“ Standing beneath this Cross of Sacrifice, facing the great Stone of Remembrance, and compassed by these sternly simple headstones, we remember, and must charge our children to remember, that, as our dead were equal in sacrifice, so are they equal in honour, for the greatest and the least of them have proved that sacrifice and honour are no vain things, but truths by which the world lives. ”

“ Me thou wilt cause by thy prayers to mount to the lofty vault of Heaven, where is perpetual light, peace, and grateful rest. This was the little that I wished thee to know. Live in remembrance of death, thou who art destined soon to die. ”

“ In tracing back the associations of many gone-by years, a host of thoughts rush in, and pensive remembrance of the dead who have labored with us casts deep shadows into the vista through which we view the past. ”

“ The remembrance of all that made life dear pierced me to the core—all that nature was to me, all the pleasures of sense and intellect, the hopes I had cherished—all was revealed to me as by a flash of lightning. ”

“ 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.... But the grave of those we love, what a place for meditation! There it is that we call up in long review the whole history of virtue and goodness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us almost unheeded in the daily intercourse of intimacy; there it is that we dwell upon the tenderness, the solemn, awful tenderness of the dying scene. ”

“ Fresh be the wound, still-renewed be its smarting, So but thy image endure in its prime. But, if the steadfast commandment of Nature Wills that remembrance should always decay— If the loved form and the deep-cherished feature Must, when unseen, from the soul fade away— Me let no half-effaced memories cumber! ”

“ Even the times of separation or of bitter quarrel, the aching heart whereon the keepsake lies, the spasms of jealousy, the tenterhooks of doubt; remembrance looks upon them all as treasures of a golden age. ”

“ In addition to the cherished remembrance always inspired by portraits of those we love, a breathing of life, as if the dead or absent person were communicating with us in spirit, is perhaps unconsciously infused into the picture while we look at it. ”

“ It is not the mere survey of the monuments of the dead that is interesting,—not the examination of the specimens of art by which they may be adorned;—it is the remembrance of the deeds which they are intended to record,—of the virtues they are destined to perpetuate,—- of the pious gratitude of which they are now the only testimony—above all, of the dust they actually cover. ”

“ For he who much has suffer’d, much will know, And pleased remembrance builds delight on woe. ”

“ Oh, the remembrance of my great sins, of my great temptations, and of my great fears of perishing for ever! They bring afresh into my mind the remembrance of my great help, my great support from heaven, and that the great grace that God extended to such a wretch as I.
My dear children, call to mind the former days, “and the years of ancient times: remember also your songs in the night; ”

“ Whether or not the dead, apart from any physical benefit from funeral offerings, are grateful for the affectionate remembrance which they symbolize, it may be doubted whether the recognition of such a feeling on their part enters very largely into our motives. ”

“ Time, with a gift of tears,
Grief, with a glass that ran;
Pleasure, with pain for leaven;
Summer, with flowers that fell;
Remembrance fallen from heaven,
And madness risen from hell;
Strength without hands to smite,
Love that endures for a breath,
Night, the shadow of light,
And life, the shadow of death.
And the high gods took in hand
Fire, and the falling of tears,
And a measure of sliding sand
From under the feet of the years,
And froth and drift of the sea;
And dust of the labouring earth;
And bodies of things to be
In the houses of death and of birth ”

“ God had no doubt ordered it thus that the pious remembrance of this death should remain in the hearts of those present, and in the memory of other men—a death which caused to be loved the passage from this life to the other by those whose existence upon this earth leads them not to dread the last judgment. ”

“ There's rosemary, that's for remembrance;24 pray you, love, remember: and there is pansies,25 that's for thoughts. ”

“ Or as one nail by strength drives out another,
So the remembrance of my former love
Is by a newer object quite forgotten. ”

“ For the Remembrance even of the pleasantest Part of it is commonly attended with Shame, and Sting of Conscience, insomuch that the Memory of past Delights is more painful to us, than that of past Misfortunes. ”

“ What an interesting and varied picture do these dates present to my mind's eye, and how many remembrances are associated with them of joy and sorrow, of trial and happiness! I could willingly spend hours in recalling all in detail, and I feel as if it would do us both good, should I do so; for I find that, in the full occupation of the present, the lessons of the past are losing their power over me. Their voice cannot be heard in the busy bustle of life ”

“ and, till that instant, shut My woeful self up in a mournful house, Raining the tears of lamentation For the remembrance of my father's death. ”

“ There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth. But since my duty has not been incompatible with the admission of that remembrance, I have given it a place in my heart.” ”

“ These are slight remembrances; but it is to little familiar things suggestive of the voice, look, manner, never, never more to be encountered on this earth, that the mind first turns in a bereavement. ”

“ Of joys departed
Not to return, low painful the remembrance! ”

“ But as this repetition is not to be expected, that which resembles most living one's life over again, seems to be to recall all the circumstances of it; and, to render this remembrance more durable, to record them in writing. ”

“ Not to return, low painful the remembrance! ”

“ There are remembrances that will not vanish,—
Thoughts of the past we would but cannot banish:
As if to show how impotent mere will,
We loathe the pang, and yet must suffer still:
For who is there can say they will forget?
—It is a power no science teaches yet. ”

“ And shall we not thank God that we were given the strength and means to make this memorial to him, and to know that as long as time shall last the grief of the women who loved him, there portrayed, shall follow him, and the glory, which the false enemy shall wrest from him, shall fold him forever to her breast, while the light of the Divine patience of his sacrifice of self shall shine ever round and about him, and more and more shall illumine our path from the dark mysteries here of pain and death to the heaven where we shall know the reason of it all! ”

“ Look around on all sides, and see all that magnificence and devotion can do to honor so great a hero: titles and inscriptions, vain signs of that which is no more; shadows which weep around a tomb, fragile images of a grief which time sweeps away with everything else; columns which appear as if they would bear to heaven the magnificent evidence of our emptiness—nothing, indeed, is wanting in all these honors but he to whom they are rendered! Weep, then, over these feeble remains of human life; weep over that mournful immortality we give to heroes. ”

“ And beautiful exceedingly are those beloved memorials—the silken locks of childhood, the treasured tresses of riper years, or the silver gray of reverend old age—which, in the eyes of sorrowing friends, are the dearest [7] relics of the loved ones whose angel spirits beyond the tomb have passed through death into eternity.
“There seems a love in hair, though it be dead:
It is the gentlest, yet the strongest thread
Of our frail plant—a blossom from the tree
Surviving the proud trunk; as if it said,
Patience and Gentleness in Power. ”

“ O worthy and ever to be observed memorial, in which the faithful soul calls to mind that its own death has been put to death, and that in its Beloved, Whom it has received, it has found Life everlasting! O wonder of all wonders the most stupendous, O joy of all joys the greatest, to have God verily present with us, though hidden beneath the wondrous Sacrament; God, Whom the Holy Angels in Heaven adore, as infinitely above themselves, showing Himself to us under a form which all may look upon. ”

“ Years they had marked for the joys of the brave,
Years they must waste in the sloth of the grave.
All the bright laurels that promised to bloom
Fell to the earth when they went to the tomb.
Give them the meed they have won in the past;
Give them the honors their merits forecast;
Give them the chaplets they won in the strife;
Give them the laurels they lost with their life.
Cover them over—yes, cover them over—
Parent and husband and brother and lover;
Crown in your heart these dead heroes of ours,
And cover them over with beautiful flowers! ”

“ Each of those names in the table is the memorial—perhaps the only memorial—of a human heart that once lived and loved; a heart that kept its steady pulsations through some certain period of time, and then ceased to beat and mouldered into dust. Each of those names is the memorial of an individual human life that had its joys and sorrows, its cares and burthens, its affections and hopes, its conflicts and achievements, its opportunities wasted or improved, and its hour of death. ”

“ O Record grave, God guide my hand And make me worthy be, Since what I write to-day shall stand To all eternity; Aye, teach me, Lord of Life, I pray, As I salute the sun, To bear myself that every day May be a Golden One. ”

“ We remember before thee those that are near and dear to us, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, whose very presence is a joy, and whose recollection is a blessing to our heart. Lord, we remember before thee those whose flesh the grave hides from our eyes, but who are still life of our life, soul of our soul, those who have ceased from their labours and have gone home to thy more intimate presence, rejoicing, and advancing from glory to glory. ”

“ And with our memory wings her own fond prayer.
O bliss of child-like innocence, and love
Tried to old age! creative power to win,
And raise new worlds, where happy fancies rove,
Forgetting quite this grosser world of sin.
Bright are their dreams, because their thoughts are clear,
Their memory cheering: but th’ earth-stained spright,
Whose wakeful musings are of guilt and fear,
Must hover nearer earth, and less in light.
Farewell, for her, th’ ideal scenes so fair—
Yet not farewell her hope, since thou hast deigned,
Creator of all hearts! ”

“ Blessed one!—for surely she who blessed all who came within her sphere, and only lived to do good, must in eternity and for eternity be blest, like thousands of others who have ministered in kindness for a day, and then went to the grave—in thy youth and loveliness thou wert exhaled from earth: like a storm-stricken flower in the morning of its bloom, wilted and dead, the fragrance of thy virtues is the incense of thy memory! ”

“ Through the thick gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the future as the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations. On its annual return, they will shed tears, copious, gushing tears, not of subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, and of joy.
13. Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. ”

“ A similar feeling of pride at the completion of a great career is expressed in the memorial lines which he composed to be placed under his bust after death,—“Let no one weep for me, or celebrate my funeral with mourning; for I still live, as I pass to and fro through the mouths of men.” ”

“ For in thy mystic globe all tunes abide,—the birthday note for kings, the marriage peal, the funeral knell, the gleeful jingle of merry mirth, and those sweet [Pg 62] chimes that float our thoughts, like fragrant ships upon a fragrant sea, toward heaven,—all are thine! Ring on, thou tuneful bell; ring on, while these glad ears may drink thy melody; and when thy chimes are heard by me no more, ring loud and clear above my grave that peal which echoes to the heavens, and tells the world of immortality, that they who come to mourn may check their tears and say, "Why do we weep? ”

“ All these names are memorials of human spirits that have passed from time into eternity. Ready or unprepared, in youth or in maturity, in childhood or in old age, they went into eternity, as we are going. ”

“ If you have engraven on your heart my often iterated admonitions and the favour of the Divine blessing invoked upon you,—to which the truth of God may add its seal, as you truly purpose to continue in the ways of God,—what need is there of a memorial on paper? ”