Lovely and chaste as is the primrose pale,
Rifled of virgin sweetness by the gale,
Mary! The wretch who thee remorseless slew,
Will surely God's avenging wrath pursue.
For, though the deed of blood be veiled in night,
"Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
Fair, blighted flower! The muse, that weeps thy doom,
Rears o'er thy sleeping dust this warning tomb!
The following quaint inscription appears on the tombstone erected in memory of John Dowler, the blacksmith, in Aston churchyard:—
Sacred to the Memory of
JOHN DOWLER,
Late of Castle Bromwich, who
Departed this life December 6th, 1787,
Aged 42,
Also two of his Sons, JAMES and CHARLES,
Who died infants.
My sledge and hammer lie reclined,
My bellows, too, have lost their wind
My fire's extinct, my forge decayed,
And in the dust my vice is laid;
My coal is spent, my iron gone,
My nails are drove, my work is done.
The latter part of the above, like the next four, has appeared in many parts of the country, as well as in the local burial grounds, from which they have been copied:—
From St. Bartholomew's:
"The bitter cup that death gave me
Is passing round to come to thee."
From General Cemetery:
"Life is a city full of crooked streets,
Death is the market-place where all men meets;
If life were merchandise which men could buy,
The rich would only live, the poor would die."