Sunday, August 29, 2010

The willow and the rose

Among the old stones in Cheshire Cemetery, Delaware County, Ohio, is the double marker for brother and sister, Anson Benton and Orminda Benton, whose births—and early deaths—were separated by years.


ANSON
son of
SAMUEL & MINERVA BENTON
died Nov 27,
1826
aged 7 days.

ORMINDA
daughter of
SAMUEL & MINERVA BENTON
died at Bristol, N.Y.
July 24,
1809
aged 1 year, 5 mo. & 5 days.

Look carefully at the gravestone to see a bit of individuality, most likely based on gender: His side bears an urn and willow; hers, a rose. 



They share an epitaph, a slightly modified version of Epitaph on an Infant by Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade,
Death came with friendly care,
The opening buds to Heav’n convey’d,
And bade them blossom there.


The poem, written for a single child, actually ends with the line “And bade it blossom there.”


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