Here lies the body of John Watson, Read this not with your hats on, For why—he was Provost of Dundee, Hallelujah, Hallelujee.
Here lyes the bodeys of George Young and Isbel Guthrie, and all their posterity for fifty years backwards. November 1757.
William Matthison here lies, Whose age was forty-one, February 17, he dies, Went Isbel Mitchell from, Who was his married wife The fourth part of his life. The soul it cannot die, Though the body be turned to clay, Yet meet again they must At the last day. Trumpet shall sound, archangels cry, “Come forth Isbel Mitchell and meet Will Matthison in the sky.”
If modesty commend a wife And Providence a mother, Grave chastity a widow’s life, We’ll not find such another In Haddington as Mareon Gray, Who here doth lie till the Domesday.
Hout, Atropos, heard-hearted hag, To cut the sheugh o’ Jamie Craig! For had he lived a wheen mae years He’d been o’er teugh for thy auld shears. But now he’s gane, sae maun we a’, Wha wres’les Death’s aye shure to fa’; Sae let us pray that we at last May wun frae Death a canny cast.
“Here lies John Smith, Whom Death slew, for all his pith The starkest man in Aberlady, God prepare and make us ready.
Our life’s a flying shadow, God’s the pole, The index pointing at him is our soul; Death’s the horizon, when our sun is set, Which will through Christ a resurrection get.
Here lies Mass Andrew Gray, Of whom ne muckle good can I say: He was ne Quaker, for he had ne spirit, He was ne Papist, for he had ne merit. He was ne Turk, for he drank muckle wine, He was ne Jew, for he eat muckle swine. Full forty years he preach’d and le’ed, For which God doomed him when he de’ed.
Stop, passenger, until my life you read, The living may get knowledge from the dead: Five times five years I lived a virgin life, Five times five years I was a virtuous wife, Five times five years a widow, grave and chaste, Tired of the elements, I am now at rest; Betwixt my cradle and my grave were seen Eight mighty kings of Scotland and a Queen; Thrice did I see old Pulacy pulled down, And thrice the cloak did sink beneath the gown.
John Adamson’s here kept within, Death’s prisoner for Adam’s sin, But rests in hope that he shall be Let, by the second Adam, free.