On an Infant

Most of the poems I include in my Sunday morning musings are hymns that have been set to music. As far as I know, the following poem has not. I ran across “On an Infant” while trying to confirm the hard-to-read epitaph on the tombstone of Elva Lynn Eiland at the Myrtle Springs Cemetery in Van Zandt County, Texas—Happy infant early blest; Rest in peaceful slumber, rest.

The entire poem from which the epitaph was extracted I is as follows:

1. To the dark and silent tomb

Soon I hasted from the womb,

Scarce the dawn of life began,

Ere I measur’d out my span.

2. I no smiling pleasures knew;

I no gay delights could view:

Joyless sojourner, was I,

Only born to weep and die.

3. Happy infant, early blest!

Rest, in peaceful slumber, rest;

Early rescu’d from the cares

Which increase with growing years.

4. No delights are worth thy stay,

Smiling as they seem, and gay

Short and fickly are they all

Hardly tasted ere they pall.

5. All our gaiety is vain,

All our laughter is but pain:

Lasting only, and divine,

Is an innocence like thine.

Elva Lynn Eiland was a daughter of F. L. Eiland and Minnie Valentine. Franklin Lycurgus Eiland was a gospel composer and hymn writer. He wrote the music for Jennie Wilson’s Hold to God’s Unchanging Hand. Country-and-western songwriter Cindy Walker was Eiland’s granddaughter.

The way is short

Below is an almost unreadable epitaph on a tombstone at the Isabell (Isbell) Chapel Cemetery at Sand Hill, Rusk County, Texas. The name on the tombstone is no longer visible.

The way is short, my friend,

That reaches out before us,

God’s tender heavens above us bend,

His love is smiling o’er us.

A little while is ours,

For sorrow or for laughter;

I’ll lay the hand you love in yours,

On the shore of the hereafter.

When I searched online to see if I had deciphered the reading correctly, I found it was part of a poem written by Mary Clemmer. The first four lines are on the stone at Isabell Chapel, and I found the four lines that come after.

Which way he went?

Among the tombs I strolled one day,
To read what the epitaphs would say.
As leisurely I walked around
On one this bold advice I found:

"Remember this as you pass by 
"As you are now, so once was I.
"As I am now, soon you shall be,
"So you prepare to follow me."

I thought and thought and gave a sigh,
Then on the ground scrawled my reply:
"To follow you, I'm not content--
"Until I know which way you went!"

(A little poem cobbled around an old epitaph and its "response")