Epigrams & Epitaphs
 
 

The poems in this page are taken from "The Faber Book of EPIGRAMS and EPITAPHS", edited by Geoffrey Grigson and published by Faber & Faber. Some are humorous, some more serious, but all well worth the reading.

Enjoy them.

God is no blotcher, but when God wrought you two,
God wrought like a blotcher, as God might do .

John Heywood (1497 ? - 1580 ?)
 
 
 

My friend, the things that do attain
The happy life be these, I find:
The riches left, not got with pain;
The fruitful ground, the quiet mind;

The equal friend; no grudge, no strife;
No change of rule , nor governance;
Without disease the healthy life;
The household of continuance;

The mean diet, no dainty fare;
Wisdom joined with simpleness;
The night discharged of all care;
Where wine the wit may not oppress;

The faithful wife, without debate;
Such sleeps as may beguile the night:
Content thyself with thine estate,
Neither wish death, nor fear his might.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517 ? - 1547 ?)
 
 
 

Even such is time that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, and all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust:
Who in the dark and silent grave
When we have wandered all our ways
Shuts up the story of our days,
And from which earth and grave and dust
The Lord shall rise me up, I trust.
 
 

Cowards fear to die, but Courage stout,
Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.

Sir Walter Ralegh (1552 ? - 1618) Written the night before his execution.
 
 
 

Here lie I, Martin Elginbrod.
Hae mercy on my soul, Lord God;
As I would do, were I Lord God,
And ye were Martin Elginbrod.

Anonymous
 
 
 

Witches and poets co-embrace like fate,
Reputed base, bare, poor, unfortunate.
In these respects I may myself intrude
Among the poets' thickest multitude.
 

Here lies that poet, buried in the night,
Whose purse, men know it, was exceeding light.

Herry Parrot (fl.1600 - 1626)
 
 
 

Here lies, the Lord have mercy upon her,
One of her Majesty's maids of honour:
She was both young, slender and pretty,
She died a maid, the more the pity.

John Hoskyns (1566 -1638)
 
 
 

When men a dangerous disease did 'scape
Of old, they gave a cock to Aesculape.
Let me give two, that doubly am got free
From my disease's danger, and from thee.

Ben Jonson (1573 ? - 1637) To Dr. Empiric
 
 
 

Some men marriage do commend,
And all their lives in wiving spend;
But if that I should wives have three
(God keep me from polygamie)
I'll give the devil two for pay,
If he will fetch the third away.

John Weever (1576 - 1632)
 
 
 

This definition poetry doth fit,
It is a witty madness, or mad wit.

Thomas Randolph (1605 - 1635)
 
 
 

What needs my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones,
The labour of an age in piled stones,
Or that his hallow'd relics should be hid
Under a stary-pointing pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast buit thy self a life-long monument.
For whilst to th' shame of slow endeavouring art,
Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu'd book,
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took,
Then thou our fancy of itself bereaving,
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And so sepulcher'd in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

John Milton (1608 - 1674) An Epitaph on W. Shakespeare.
 
 
 

Oh, England.
Sick in head and sick in heart,
Sick in whole and every part,
And yet sicker thou art still,
For thinking that thou art not ill.

Anonymous
 
 
 

The Devil was more generous than Adam,
That never laid the fault upon his madam:
But like a gallant and heroic elf
Took freely all the crime upon himself.
 
 

The greatest saints and sinners have been made
Of proselytes of one another's trade.

Samuel Butler (1612 - 1680)
 
 
 
 

When Eve did with the snake dispute
O had they both been dumb!
The apple, of all sin the root,
O had it been a plum!
And Adam, when thou eat'st the fruit
O had thou suck'd thy thumb!

Matthew Prior (1664 - 1721)
 
 
 
 
Nature, and Nature's laws lay hid in night.
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.

(Epitaph intended for Sir Isaac Newton)

Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744)
 
 
 
 
See, one Physician, like a sculler, plies,
The patient lingers and by inches dies.
But two Physicians, like a pair of oars,
Waft him more swiftly to the Stygian shores.

Joseph Jekyll (1752 - 1837)
 
 
 
 
Here lies intombed
Beneath these bricks
The scabbard of ten
Thousand pricks.

William Lort Mansel (1753 - 1820) Epitaph on a willing girl
 
 

O Lord, since we have feasted thus,
Which we so little merit,
Let Meg now take away the flesh,
And Jock bring in the spirit!
Amen.

Robert Burns (1759 - 1796) Grace after dinner.
 
 
 

Swans sing before they die: 't were no bad thing
Did certain persons die before they sing.
 

What is an Epigram? a dwarfish whole,
Its body brevity, and wit its soul.
 

Truth I pursued, as Fancy sketch'd the way,
And wiser men than I went worse astray.

S.T. Coleridge (1772 -1834)
 
 
 
 
 George the First was always reckoned
Vile, but viler George the Second;
And what mortal ever heard
Any good of George the Third?
When from earth the Fourth descended
(God be praised!) the Georges ended.

Walter Savage Landor (1775 -1864)
 
 
 
 
 Here lies Fred
Who was alive and is dead;
Had it been his father,
I had much rather;
Had it been his brother,
Still better than another;
Had it been his sister,
No one would have missed her;
Had it been the whole generation,
So much the better for the nation;
But since 'tis only Fred
Who was alive and is dead, -
Why, there's no more to be said.

Thomas Moore (1779 -1852) On Prince Frederick
 
 
 
 
With death doom'd to grapple,
Beneath this cold slab, he
Who lied in the Chapel
Now lies in the Abbey.

Epitaph for William Pitt
 

Posterity will ne'er survey
A nobler grave than this:
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh:
Stop, traveller, and piss.

George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788 - 1824)
 
 
 
 
Here lie the bones of Elizabeth Charlotte,
That was born a virgin and died an harlot,
She was aye a virgin till seventeen -
An extraordinary thing for Aberdeen.

Anonymous (On an Aberdeen favourite)
 
 
 
 
Here lies the Reverend Jonathan Doe,
Where he has gone to I don't know;
If haply to the realms above,
Farewell to hapiness and love;
If haply to a lower level,
I can't congratulate the Devil.

Anonymous
 
 
 
 
 Here lies a bard, let epitaphs be true,
His vices many, and his virtues few;
Who always left religion in the lurch
But never left a tavern for a church,
Drank more from pewter than Pierian spring
And only in his cups was known to sing;
Laugh'd at the world, however it may blame,
And died regardless of his fate or fame.

H.J. Daniel (1818 - 1889) My Epitaph.
 
 
 
 
 Here lies my wife, a sad slattern and a shrew,
If I said I regretted her, I should lie too.
 

Here lies my poor wife, without bed or blanket;
But dead as a door nail; God be thanked.
 

Her lies my poor wife, much lamented,
She is happy and I am contented.
 

While Adam slept, from him his Eve arose:
Strange! his first sleep should be his last repose.

Anonymous
 
 
 
 If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.

Tell them in Lakedaimon, passer-by,
We kept the Spartan code, and here we lie.

Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936) From "Epitaphs of War"
 
 
 
 On his books
When I am dead, I hope it may be said:
"His sins were scarlet, but his books were read."
On a Puritan
He served his God so faithfully and well
That now he sees him face to face, in hell.
 

First in his pride the orient sun's display
Renews the world, and changes night to day.
A little later - around about eleven -
Juliet appears, and changes earth to heaven.

Hilaire Belloc (1870 - 1956)
 
 
 
This quiet mound beneath
Lies Corporal Pym.
He had no fear of death;
Nor Death of him.

Here lies my wife,
Susannah Prout;
She was a shrew
I don't misdoubt:
Yet all I have
I'd give, could she
But for an hour
Come back to me.

Walter De La Mare (1873 - 1956)
 
 
 
 
The plainer Dubliners amaze us
By their so frequent use of "Jeyshus"
Which makes me entertain the notion
It is not always from devotion.
 

To Death

But for your Terror
Where would be Valour?
What is Love for
But to stand in your way?
Taker and Giver,
For all your endeavour
You leave us with more
Than you touch with decay.

Oliver St. John Gogarty (1878 - 1957)
 
 
 
 
 Two statesmen met by moonlight.
Their ease was partly feigned.
They glanced about the prairie.
Their faces were constrained.
In various ways aforetime
They had misled the state,
Yet did it so politely
Their henchmen thought them great.

Vachel Lindsay (1879 - 1931)
 
 
 
 
 How odd
Of God
To choose
The Jews.
 

You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
thank God! the
British journalist.

But, seeing what
the man can do
unbribed, there's
no occasion to.

W.N. Ewer (1885 -1977)
 
 
 
 
I dreamt that I was God Himself
Whom heavenly joy immerses,
And all the angels sat about
And praised my verses.

Ezra Pound (1885 - 1972)
 
 
 
 
 To kill its enemies and cheat its friends,
Each nation its prerogative defends;
Yet some their efforts for goodwill maintain,
In hope, in faith, in patience, and in vain.
 

Science finds out ingenious ways to kill
Strong men, and keep alive the weak and ill,
That these a sickly progeny may breed
Too poor to tax, too numerous to feed.

Colin Ellis (1895 - 1969)
 
 
 
 

From a Lavatory Wall
 

Above:
Wise men come here to shit,
And fools come here to show their wit.

Below:
By writing this, you bleeding ass,
You include yourself in the latter class.

Anonymous
 
 
 
 And this one for the French speaking world

Il y avait un jeune homme de Dijon,
Qui n'avait que peu de religion.
Il dit: "Quant à moi,
Je détest tous les troi,
Le Père, et le Fils, et le Pigeon."

?Norman Douglas