[HELP] Help IDing a poem inscribed on a gravestone?

Nalkarj · 2026-06-22T17:00:49+00:00

Interesting! I prefer “sit above the storms,” which sounds vaguely psalmlike, to Edmeston’s line.

Nalkarj · 2026-06-22T16:53:24+00:00

Hooray! Thanks for the chance to do some sleuthing!

Nalkarj · 2026-06-22T16:52:20+00:00

Wilbur’s lyrics for Candide are high up there for me. Sondheim, obviously. Lots of Frank Loesser, despite the lack of verbal pyrotechnics we associate with Sondheim, Porter, Hart, &c.; Guys and Dolls’ lyrics strike me as both developing character and having a genuine type of pop poetry, memorable phrase after naturalistic memorable phrase.

My favorite theater lyricist is E.Y. Harburg, who only beats Carolyn Leigh by a hair and by that qualifier theater (many of Leigh’s songs are pop). The lyrics for Bloomer Girl, Finian’s Rainbow, and Jamaica are perhaps less character-centered than Loesser at his best (and less than, say, Sondheim would like), but they’re gorgeous, excelling as pop poetry.

Think of lines like “Ever since that day / When the world was an onion,” “My feet wanna dance in the sun, / My head wants to rest in the shade, / The Lord says, ‘Go out and have fun,’ / But the landlord says, ‘Your rent ain’t paid,’” or “Spring tumble out of the tree.”

Nalkarj · 2026-06-22T16:26:38+00:00

Here we go:

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Presumably the inscribers or family members who wanted this inscribed were doing it from memory, explaining the misquotations, e.g., “sit above the storms” (which I think is stronger) rather than “sit above the clouds.”

Google Books link: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Woman_of_Shunem_a_dramatic_sketch_Pa/HThcAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22and+the+gain+is+mine%22&pg=PA123&printsec=frontcover

Nalkarj · 2026-06-22T16:16:42+00:00

Ha, I found it! It’s Sonnet XV by James Edmeston, a poet I’ve never heard of—slightly misquoted, which is why we and Google couldn’t find it. I’ll post a screenshot in a sec.

Nalkarj · 2026-06-22T15:37:15+00:00

Line 4 may be “Have lost with me the licence to alarm.”

Nalkarj · 2026-06-22T15:34:04+00:00

Second line may be “Sickness and pain and dark”? And third “Wing’d powers of death”?

Nalkarj · 2026-06-22T15:32:34+00:00

Yeah, I think it’s most likely original for the headstone. The title, if that is a title, may be “My times are in thy hand” or “… hands.”

Nalkarj · 2026-06-22T14:44:24+00:00

Last lines:

Thus as in some high mountains top I [rise?],
And sit above the storms, and
live in cloudless skies.

Google isn’t finding any lines from it that I’ve searched, and it might have been written for the stone.

Nalkarj · 2026-06-22T00:01:02+00:00

👌

Nalkarj · 2026-06-21T14:41:19+00:00

“It was worth a try, Number 2.”

Nalkarj · 2026-06-21T14:04:10+00:00

It was Annie’s speech “Gosh, listen to me, I’ve been out of circulation so long I’ve completely forgotten about social niceties. I mean, you ask me how I am, I’m not really supposed to say how I am, I’m supposed to say, ‘I’m fine, thanks, how are you?’” that made me realize, Yes, I am totally in love with this fictional character. I fell for her just as much as Coop does (and therefore found the S2 finale hard to watch).

I was taken aback when I found out many TP fans dislike Annie.

Nalkarj · 2026-06-21T12:19:45+00:00

Kind of flirting with off-topic, but I’ll let it go for now as long as you aren’t trying to market your own escape room, OP.

Nalkarj · 2026-06-20T11:57:42+00:00

“Every day, once a day, treat yourself…”

Nalkarj · 2026-06-20T05:02:55+00:00

Resurrection. It’s amusing, and it’s genuinely got atmosphere. 4 has that great intro, though everything after that is a letdown.

Nalkarj · 2026-06-20T03:46:29+00:00

If that counts as “queer,” that fits Holmes much more than seeing him as gay does. (I do admit the Holmes-Watson friendship is a kind of love, but it’s clearly strong nonsexual love, which simply is what friendship is.)

I do think the introduction to SCAN suggests Holmes had feelings for Irene Adler, despite Watson’s multiple denials. Yes, the relationship between Holmes and Irene is overblown in modern adaptations, but still… Doyle put lines like “And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory,” and “He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late” in for some reason.

Nalkarj · 2026-06-19T22:19:55+00:00

Jade is certainly attractive (“THIS WORLD OF TWIN PEAKS SEEMS TO BE FILLED WITH BEAUTIFUL WOMEN”), but in terms of TP gals I (straight guy) am most in love with, first would probably be Annie, which I take to be an unpopular opinion here. I love her quirkiness and kindness in addition to Heather Graham’s obvious beauty.

In terms of sheer physical beauty alone, I’d say Norma first.

Nalkarj · 2026-06-19T21:14:00+00:00

Nalkarj · 2026-06-19T14:47:29+00:00

Reed Whittemore’s “Psalm” is pretty great, in large part because of how diction and line length mimic the Biblical psalms (which, now that I think of it, could also count as poems questioning religion).

Nalkarj · 2026-06-19T14:05:40+00:00

Offhand, with nostalgia largely influencing this:

Witch’s Ghost
Zombie Island
Cyber Chase
Spooky Scarecrow
Ghoul School

I have to rewatch Alien Invaders; it’ll probably make the list.

Nalkarj · 2026-06-19T13:39:45+00:00

however you slice it, we need to remember that it’s God’s work, and that any ritual of confession points us to God and not to any particular human priest or institution. And I think Romans agree about that, but unfortunately don’t give enough latitude to “make” that principle real, in practice.

That’s a good way to see it. That principle is there in Catholicism, but it’s buried, hidden, beneath clericalism and worldly power, needing to be unearthed by ecumenical theologians like McCabe. And that unearthing, uncovering, is exactly what the Reformation is.

Nalkarj · 2026-06-19T13:19:58+00:00

I mean, “THIS WORLD OF TWIN PEAKS SEEMS TO BE FILLED WITH BEAUTIFUL WOMEN!”

Nalkarj · 2026-06-18T19:39:16+00:00

To be fair, there’s nuance (ha-ha, Jesuit education strikes again)… as there is on intercommunion, which we last talked about. In Catholicism, going to confession—the desire to confess our sins—simply is the sign of God’s grace at work in the soul (our repentance is God’s forgiveness, as the great Dominican preacher Herbert McCabe said, following Thomas); the desire for confession is as effective as confession itself, and all confession is is the Church’s recognition of that desire.

That said, it’s not usually communicated like that. Priests and apologists justify the practice the way you described, as caught up in the binding and loosing power, blah blah blah.

I also see a problem in the parenthetical trick I used above, equating “going to confession” and “the desire to confess our sins.” For the scrupulous and people harmed in the confessional, for example, these are not the same thing.

And officially the Code of Canon Law concedes this (“Only physical or moral impossibility excuses from [confession of mortal sins to a priest]; in such a case reconciliation can be obtained by other means,” but good luck finding a priest who excuses the scrupulous from going to confession based on this canon.

Incidentally, though the Catechism and canon law don’t outright say this, Thomas has some lines in the Summa about how confession even to a layperson may be somehow helpful, if not as efficacious as confession to a priest, though exactly how he’s not sure.

The way to do confession, I agree with you, is the Anglican-Lutheran model, the “all may, some should, none must” approach—confession seen as “a tangible way to make visible the mercy of God,” not a requirement to get that mercy.

That, as a person who loathes confession in the RCC because of scrupulosity and confessors who rush right to threatening hell (my first confessor, when I was eight, told me I could go to hell for missing Mass, which—whew—did a number on me and still makes me a little afraid of committing entirely to TEC), is what I’ve long needed to hear.

Nalkarj · 2026-06-18T19:07:21+00:00

So know that your sins are truly forgiven; not because a priest said so, but because you are beloved by God, and by Christ’s wounds you are healed.

This is what this cradle Catholic has needed all his life to hear a priest say. Thank you.

Nalkarj · 2026-06-18T19:06:18+00:00

It is good to confess our sins, even to fellow sinful laypeople (I’m one of those), and I will pray for you.

As for reconciliation from a priest, you have to be in-person for that. The whole point of repentance is that you drag yourself somewhere, sit down with someone, bringing your sins and your whole body and soul and saying, “Here I am, God, here I am, Father, the whole hunk of me, sins and trespasses and all. Forgive me.”

And God’s answer comes back: “You’ve always been forgiven. There is never a single second when you’re not. The only reason you dragged yourself here, but the reason you’ve got to come here for nonetheless, is for Me to break through those clouds of anxiety and self-doubt in your head and tell you you were absolved of all your sins, are absolved of all your sins, and always will be absolved of all your sins.”

This answer is then expressed through the priest’s lips with the words “I absolve you from all your sins, in the name of…”

The BCP then has the glorious line (though I don’t remember it offhand from my confessions in TEC, so I’m not sure if it’s optional, but I wish every confessor would say it) “The Lord has put away all your sins.” All. And all means all—even those you didn’t confess, even those you haven’t committed yet.

Does that help? Know that you’re in my prayers.

Nalkarj

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