![head stone do not stand at my grave and weep head stone do not stand at my grave and weep](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e499d4261c7e93752870c99/1613502685431-YM7WSGA5SV890SRAZ36D/image-asset.jpeg)
How old is the "remember me" verse really? And when/how did it come to America?Īn 1850 edition of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register cites the Canterbury tomb of Edward the Black Prince (1330-1376) as the source of the verse. The Benjamin Scudder stone in Westfield, New Jersey, sometimes cited as an early example (1708), is actually from 1798 (see editor's note here and Benjamin Scudder's death record here). A variant lacking the "prepare for death" line can be found on the Elisha Doane gravestone (1759) in Wellfleet, MA ( transcription here). The oldest American example I can find dates from 1772, but the transcription makes it hard to tell whether the verse appears on a joint stone erected in 1780 or two side-by-side stones erected in 17. Yet, I have not been able to find this verse on a 17th- or early-18th-century gravestone anywhere in North America. Douglas Keister, author of Stories in Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography, tells us that this verse, "and its variants are the most common ones found on Colonial New England gravestones" (132). It just seems like a Puritan-with-a-capital-P sort of sentiment. Prepare for death and follow me.In my mind, I have always associated that verse with the oldest of New England gravestones - the ones covered with imps and hourglasses and scythe-wielding skeletons.