Tomb

“ O Tomb, of all these tears,
In my recesses ere the sun appears,
I make a perfume which the gods will prize.
Said the Tomb: O plaintive Flower,
Of every mortal I devour
An angel do I make for Paradise. ”

“ I have stood before a rock-hewn tomb over the brow of this hill, scarce a dozen furlongs, and heard his voice wake one who for four days had slumbered in the cloying embrace of death, and the dead, swathed round about with grave-clothes, strode forth instinct with quivering life. ”

“ They had escaped from the tomb where the buried still have memories of lovers, husbands, wives and children—yes, the tomb of God’s utterest pestilential misery, where the dead still curse, still dream that they hear the laughter of other days moaning in the wind-swept pines, on the shores of beetling, wave-washed crags. ”

“ Through a range of sepulchral grots underneath, the humbler denizens of the tomb are deposited,—looking out on each successive generation that visits them, with the same face and features they wore centuries ago. Every plant and tree, that is consecrated to death, from the asphodel-flower to the mystic plantain, lends its sweetness or shadow to this place of tombs; and the only noise that disturbs its eternal calm, is the low humming sound of the priests at prayer, when a new inhabitant is added to the silent city. ”

“ There is the open tomb, with its dead occupant; there are the eager, sceptical crowd, the sisters pausing in their weeping to gaze, with some strange hopes beginning to creep into their hearts, the silent disciples, and, in front of them all, Jesus, with the radiance of power in the eyes that had just been swimming in tears, and a new elevation in His tones. ”

“ Lingeringly is the last look taken of the familiar countenance, as the procession passes slowly around the tomb; and the moaning is made,—a sound of groans going up to the seventh heavens,—and the earth is thrown in, and the headstone with epitaph placed duly to hallow the grave of the dead. ”

“ The grave and the past--man's tomb, and the tomb of man's actions had received them, and in the short space of twenty years all had gone, fading away and dissolving into air like a smoke rising up unto heaven, and spreading out thinner and thinner, till naught remains. ”

“ At the base and on the steps is a woman dressed in mourning, kneeling in the attitude of prayer, while nearby is a wreath inscribed to the unknown dead. Back of the tomb in the distance you can see the rays of the setting sun and in some indescribable way they are lighting up the faces of those on the temple stairway like a beautiful rainbow of promise, while the tomb itself is left in the shadows of the declining day. ”

“ But there's no fall for thee; there is no tomb;
And none shall stab thee, none shall stay thy hand.
Thy face is fair with love's eternal bloom,
And thou shalt have all things at thy command.
A tomb for thee? Ay, when the sun is slain
And lamps and fires make daylight on the plain,
Then may'st thou die, O Freedom! and for thee
A tomb be found where fears and dangers be. ”

“ Suddenly, the color fled, the pulsation ceased, the lips resumed the expression of the dead, and, in an instant afterward, the whole body took upon itself the icy chilliness, the livid hue, the intense rigidity, the sunken outline, and all the loathsome peculiarities of that which has been, for many days, a tenant of the tomb. ”

“ 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?
But the grave of those we loved—what a place for meditation! ”

“ A tomb is a monument erected on the confines of two worlds. It first presents to us the end of the vain disquietudes of life and the image of everlasting repose; it afterwards awakens in us the confused sentiment of a blessed immortality, the probabilities of which grow stronger and stronger in proportion as the person whose memory is recalled was a virtuous character. ”

“ One by one from us departed,
For the cold and silent tomb.
Birds employ their notes of gladness
As they flutter to and fro,
Flow’rs display their wealth of beauty,
As they used to long ago;
But the birds may sing forever,
And the flow’rs forever bloom;
They can ne’er bring back the faces
That are hidden in the tomb!
Silently death steals upon us,
Silently time speedeth on—
Soon we, too, shall all be numbered,
With the faces that are gone;
Each and all must shortly follow
Thro’ the shadows and the gloom,
To the loved ones who are waiting
In the light beyond the tomb. ”

“ The grey rock out of which their tomb is cut is a citadel against all assaults of the flesh and the spirit; the kindred earth that wraps the weather-beaten, worn-out body, is a soft and warm resting-place from the hardships it has had to encounter. ”

“ One represented a tomb, from the half-opened marble doors of which a figure of Death has just issued, and is in the very act of casting his dart at a lady who is sinking affrighted into the arms of her husband, who is rising startled from his seat upon the top of the tomb. The life-like attitude and expression of affright of these two figures are wonderful, while the figure of Death, with the shroud half falling off, revealing the fleshless ribs, skull, and bones of the full-length skeleton, is something a little short of terrible in its marvellous execution. ”

“ A fearful sight; the tall figure distended with the corruption of the grave, the nose fallen off, the wandering, vacant eyes, with the glaze of death on them, the sallow flesh patched with green masses of decay; the wolf-grey hair and beard have grown in the tomb, and hang matted about the shoulders and breast; the nails, too, they have grown. ”

“ From out the buried years, From many a vaulted tomb, Whence neither pomp nor power could chase The dim, sepulchral gloom, Lo, now, a pale, proud line, They glide before our eyes!— Art thou a wizard, mighty bell, To bid the dead arise? ”

“ I watch the solemn gold-stained gloom that creeps To kiss an alabaster tomb, where sleeps A lady 'twixt two knights' stone effigies, And every day in dusky glory steeps Their sculptured slumber of five centuries. ”

“ To visit her grave in the beautiful hillside cemetery outside Lisieux, and watch the endless stream of pilgrims who come on every day of the year from all parts of the world to ask her help, to deposit letters explaining their needs, and lay on her tomb for blessing the clothes of babies or the food of the sick, is to understand what the shrine of a mediæval saint must have been like. ”

“ In the death-like stillness of the church, the visitor who, for the first time, contemplates this tomb and its gloomy guard, is struck by a feeling of awe, approaching to terror. The statues, with life-like individuality of attitude and expression—each solemn, mournful, dignified, and graceful; and all seeming to dilate before the eye into enormous dimensions, and, as if framed to scare intruders, endowed by [Pg 591] a power more than mortal, to keep watch and ward round the mighty dead. ”

“ How highly must God have thought of thee, when He, Whose dominion extends to the ends of the earth and over everything within the circuit of the Heavens, chose thy tomb above all other places in the world as the place of His Burial. ”

“ There you have all my life, save only a tomb which I have not yet had the courage to visit. We pay great attention to crumbling monuments: we keep them up; we rid them of their plants and flowers; the women whom I had left young have become old, and the ruins have become young again: what would you have one do here? ”

“ The tomb was an enormous place—part cave, and partly hewn—twenty feet by twenty by as many feet deep at the most conservative guess; and on four ledges, one on each side, not in their armor but in the rags of their robes of honor, lay the bones of four earlier Montdidiers—all big men, broad-shouldered and long of shin and thigh. ”

“ There is stone upon stone, tomb upon tomb, monument upon monument, and between them wherever you turn your eye, syringa-trees and bushes. From among broken rocks, from dark corners of tombs and sarcophagi, from the hollows of decayed stones, stems, sometimes winding like serpents, make their way out into space and spread into thick bushy crowns, which form a wealth of green and shady arcades of branches descending from above to the rotten tombstones, and to the damp clay of the ground which is overgrown by a monotonous sickly yellowish green. ”

“ The body of the dearly beloved Son is taken from his Mother and laid by the disciples in the tomb. The tomb is closed, and there, cold and motionless, lies the lifeless body, until the hour of its glorious resurrection comes. ”

“ The eyes gaze with wonder at clustered columns of gigantic dimensions, with arches springing from them to such an amazing height, and man wandering about their bases, shrunk into insignificance in comparison with his own handiwork. The spaciousness and gloom of this vast edifice produce a profound and mysterious awe. We step cautiously and softly about, as if fearful of disturbing the hallowed silence of the tomb, while every footfall whispers along the walls and chatters among the sepulchres, making us more sensible of the quiet we have interrupted. ”

“ It is touching to see the tributes which have been paid to this great man, the trees planted in his honor, the monuments erected to his memory, but none is more touching than the unconscious tribute which nature herself is giving. The tomb is silent and cold. One thinks of the sterner qualities of the dead, when a bit of color catches the eye. ”

“ They are set side by side, the tomb and the triumphal arch, in a circular grassy space enclosed with olive-orchards and backed by delicate fretted peaks: not another vestige of Roman construction left to connect them with the past. ”

“ Remember, above all, that whatever may lie beyond the tomb, the tomb itself is nothing to you. The narrow prison-house, the gloomy pomp, the hideousness of decay, are known to the living and the living alone. ”

“ Toll, toll for him, the youthful one, O solemn bell! O funeral bell!
Cathedral bell of time!
“Mourn, mourn for him, the youthful one, O heart of life and bloom!
Death dimmed the splendor of thy sun, O earth! within his tomb. ”

“ You think how the dead are lying in their cold shrouds and narrow coffins through the drear winter of the grave, and cannot persuade your fancy that they neither shrink nor shiver when the snow is drifting over their little hillocks and the bitter blast howls against the door of the tomb. ”

“ I walked slowly amongst the tombs, and tried to decipher the inscriptions. The dead are of various nations,—English, American, but principally German. Sometimes a cluster of cypresses shadowed the tomb—sometimes a fair flowering shrub had twined around it. The epitaphs were written with elegance always; at times with the deepest tenderness and beauty. Each had his short history, each his melancholy interest and adventure. Here was the man of science and literature, who came to lay down his head, after a painful and varied pilgrimage, in this City of the Soul. ”

“ I often stroll through this cemetery younger than myself, in which the worms that gnaw the dead are not yet dead; I read the epitaphs: how many women between sixteen and thirty years old have become the prey of the tomb! Happy they to have lived only in their youth! ”

“ The sepulchre has faithfully preserved what the memory of man has forgotten and what has been lost in scattered libraries. The tomb alone, opening its sombre lips, has replied to the questions of to-day; it knows what historians do not know ”

“ Presently you come to a Frenchwoman’s tomb, with a French epitaph, by a French husband, and a pot of artificial flowers in a niche—a wig, and a pot of rouge, as it were, just to make the dead look passably well. ”

“ In the midst of this grand mausoleum stands the sepulchre of its founder—his effigy, with that of his queen, extended on a sumptuous tomb—and the whole surrounded by a superbly-wrought brazen railing.
There is a sad dreariness in this magnificence, this strange mixture of tombs and trophies, these emblems of living and aspiring ambition, close beside mementos which show the dust and oblivion in which all must sooner or later terminate. Nothing impresses the mind with a deeper feeling of loneliness than to tread the silent and deserted scene of former throng and pageant. ”

“ After the volumes of eloquence which have poured forth on this subject, it is dangerous even to mention the tomb. A modern traveller, in twelve lines, burdens the poor little island with the following titles,—it is a grave, tomb, pyramid, cemetery, sepulchre, catacomb, sarcophagus, minaret, and mausoleum! ”

“ All their advances, whether in moral attainment, in personal achievement, or in worldly advantage, are, at the best, but enlargements and adornments of a tomb, and of a tomb destined itself to perish! ”

“ While the waters flow and tall trees flourish, and the sun rises and shines and the bright moon also; while rivers run and the sea breaks on the shore, ever remaining on this mournful tomb, I tell the passer-by that Midas here lies buried. ”

“ Mrs. Grose and Flora had passed into the church, the other worshippers had followed, and we were, for the minute, alone among the old, thick graves. We had paused, on the path from the gate, by a low, oblong, table-like tomb. ”

“ Then the four men kneeled down and prayed, and the next day they went to the priest, and told him all that had happened.
So the people took those ashes and buried them in their church, in a marble tomb, and above it they caused to be carved their figures lying with clasped hands; and on the sides of it the history of the cave in the red pike.
And in my dream I saw the moon shining on the tomb, throwing fair colours on it from the painted glass; till a sound of music rose, deepened, and fainted ”