Mary Minerva Garlick, newlywed

The first thing I noticed about this gravestone was its striking urn-and-willow carving. Then I read the inscription. Mary Minerva Garlick (b. 1820, d. 1840) was married less than six months when she died.

MARY, MANERVA,
WIFE OF
CARMI. P. GARLICK,
Born June 19^th 1820:
Married mar 21^st 1840,
DIED SEPT. 9^th 1840,
AGED 20 YEARS 2
Months 21 days.

The epitaph, badly weathered in spots, is taken from this verse of the long poem Pleasures of Hope by Scottish poet Thomas Campbell (b. 1777, d. 1844):

“And weep not thus,” he cried, “young Ellenore;
My bosom bleeds, but soon shall bleed no more!
Short shall this half-extinguished spirit burn,
And soon these limbs to kindred dust return!
But not, my child, with life’s precarious fire,
The immortal ties of Nature shall expire;
These shall resist the triumph of decay,
When time is o’er, and worlds have pass’d away;
Cold in the dust this perish’d heart may lie,
But that which warm’d it once shall never die!
That spark unburied in its mortal frame,
With living light, eternal, and the same,
Shall beam on Joy’s interminable years,
Unveil’d by darkness — unassuag’d by tears!

Bonus links
Carmi Garlick on FindAGrave.com
The Pleasures of Hope by Thomas Campbell

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Union Township Cemetery, Union County, Ohio