In recognition of October being a time to remember the departed in many cultures, this month's poems are taken from the anthology, 
Words For Parting: Victorian Poetry on Death and Mourning

​
A Promise
 
We walk together.  If while you are watching
The waves which beat so strong upon the shore,
I should be missing and you could not find me
And could but touch the garment which I wore,
I pray of you —weep not, —and when you call me,
Forget that name which once was mine to you.
Forget the face which hid a spirit's features,
We meet again where old has changed to new.
 
But should you seek for me upon earth's bosom
And if to find me you would wander far--
Listen— I'll lie amongst the tangled grasses,
I'll tremble in the light about a star.
I'll sing to you by means of women's voices,
I'll weep to you in saddened children's hearts.
I am a part of life, and you, beloved,
Touch close to me amongst the other parts.
 
—Maude Lyons
The Cosmopolitan. March, 1895. p. 528.

Victorian Mourning Customs
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Words For Parting: Victorian Poetry on Death and Mourning

Happy Hallowe'en!

Victorian Halloween
Merchandise

In recognition of October being a time to remember the departed in many cultures, this month's poems are taken from the anthology, 
Words For Parting: Victorian Poetry on Death and Mourning

​There Is No Such Thing As Death
 
There is no such thing as death
In nature nothing dies;
From each sad remnant of decay
Some forms of life arise
 
The little leaf that falls
All brown and sere to earth
Ere long will mingle with the buds
That give the flower its birth.
 
—Anonymous
Found in Hill's Manual of Social and Business Forms, 1891. p. 549.

Victorian Mourning Customs

Words For Parting: Victorian Poetry on Death and Mourning

From our private archive.
Get this image on a poster, bag or other Halloween merchandise
A late 19th-century illustration of a young lady reading ghost stories, used to advertise a patent medicine.  (The back of the trade card extolling the wonders of the elixir can be seen below.)

Portrait of Queen Victoria from the Royal Collection

Portrait of Prince Albert from ​http://philipmould.com/browse-art/old-masters/19th-century/prince-albert-chalon

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Private individuals, personal use: Include a link to this website <www.ThisVictorianLife.com> ​when you re-post or share pictures from our website, and you may do so free of charge.

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In recognition of October being a time to remember the departed in many cultures, this month's poems are taken from the anthology, 
Words For Parting: Victorian Poetry on Death and Mourning

​Forty Years Ago
 
I've wander'd to the village, Tom,
I've sat beneath the tree,
Upon the school-house play-ground,
That shelter'd you and me;
But none were left to greet me, Tom,
And few were left to know,
Who play'd with us upon that green
Just forty years ago.
 
The grass was just as green, Tom,
Barefooted boys at play
Were sporting, just as we did then,
With spirits just as gay;
But the master sleeps upon the hill,
Which, coated, o'er with snow,
Afforded us a sliding-place
Some forty years ago.
 
The old school-house is alter'd some,
The benches are replaced
By new ones, very like the same
Our jack-knives had defaced;
But the same old bricks are in the wall,
And the bell swings to and fro,
It's music just the same, dear Tom,
'Twas forty years ago.
 
The boys were playing some old game
Beneath that same old tree;
I do forget the name just now,--
You've played the same with me
On that same spot;
'Twas played with knives,
By throwing so and so;
The loser had a task to do
There forty years ago.
 
The river's running just as still;
The willows on its side
Are larger than they were, Tom;
The stream appears less wide;
But the grape-vine swing is miss'd now,
Where once we played the beau,
And swung our sweethearts—pretty girls--
Just forty years ago.
 
The spring that bubbled 'neath the hill,
Close by the spreading beech,
Is very low; 'twas once so high
That we could scarcely reach;
And kneeling down to take a drink,
Dear Tom, I started so,
To think how much I've changed
Since forty years ago.
 
Near by that spring, upon an elm,
You know, I cut your name;
Your sweetheart's just beneath it, Tom,
And you did mine the same.
Some heartless wretch has peel'd the bark;
'Twas dying sure, but slow,
Just as she died whose name you cut
There forty years ago.
 
My lids have long been dry, Tom,
But tears came in my eyes;
I thought of her I loved so well,
Those early broken ties.
I visited the old church-yard,
And took some flowers to strow
Upon the graves of those we loved
Just forty years ago.
 
Some are in the church-yard laid,
Some sleep beneath the sea;
But none are left of our old class
Excepting you and me.
And when our time shall come, Tom,
And we are call'd to go,
I hope we'll meet with those we loved
Some forty years ago.
—Anonymous
Fulton and Trueblood's Choice Readings, 1884, pp. 159—161.

Victorian Mourning Customs

Words For Parting: Victorian Poetry on Death and Mourning

Scaredy-cats and their magic mirror.
​Late 19th-century die-cut in our private archive.

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​More Victorian Halloween images

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Private individuals, personal use: Include a link to this website <www.ThisVictorianLife.com> when you re-post or share any pictures from our website, and you may do so free of charge.

Commercial use or publication of images: Please contact us about fees for commercial use and high-resolution images.

In recognition of October being a time to remember the departed in many cultures, this month's poems are taken from the anthology, 
Words For Parting: Victorian Poetry on Death and Mourning
​

​The Telegram
 
"Is this the tel'graph office?"
Asked a childish voice one day,
As I noted the click of my instrument
With its message from far away.
As it ceased, I turned; at my elbow,
Stood the merest scrap of a boy,
Whose childish face was all aglow,
With the light of a hidden joy.
 
The golden curls on his forehead,
Shaded eyes of the deepest blue,
As if a bit of the summer sky
Had lost in them its hue.
They scanned my office rapidly,
From ceiling down to floor,
Then turned on mine their eager gaze,
As he asked the question o'er,
 
"Is this the tel'graph office?"
"It is my little man,"
I said, "Pray tell me what you want
And I'll help you if I can."
Then the blue eyes grew more eager,
And the breath came thick and fast;
And I saw within the chubby hands,
A folded paper grasped.
 
"Nurse told me," he said, "that the lighting
Came down on the wires, some day;
And my mamma has gone to heaven,
And I'm lonely since she is away.
For my papa is very busy,
And hasn't much time for me,
So I thought I'd write her a letter,
And I've brought it for you to see.
 
"I've printed it big, so the angels
Could read out quick, the name,
And carry it straight to my mamma,
And tell her how it came;
And now, won't you please to take it,
And throw it up good and strong,
Against the wires in a thunder shower,
And the lightning will take it along."
 
Ah! What could I tell the darling?
For my eyes were filling fast;
I turned away to hide the tears,
But I cheerfully spoke at last.
"I'll do the best I can, my child,"
T'was all that I could say;
"Thank you," he said, then scanned the sky.
"Do you think it will thunder to-day?"
 
But the blue sky smiled in answer,
And the sun shone dazzling bright,
And his face as he slowly turned away,
Lost some of its gladsome light.
"But nurse," he said, "if I stay so long,"
"Won't let me come any more;
So good-bye, I'll come and see you again
Right after a thunder shower."
 
—K.L.G.H.
Good Housekeeping, February 2, 1889. p. 153. 

Victorian Mourning Customs

Words For Parting: Victorian Poetry on Death and Mourning

Get this on a card, an everyday mug, a Halloween mug with a ghost story picture or a Halloween mug with a picture of cats looking into a magic mirror
​More Victorian Halloween merchandise

     A minor little detail about me which my close friends already know: I am immensely fond of owls.  Hearing or catching a glimpse of a wild owl is enough to make my whole week.  The beautiful picture shown above, of a gorgeous white owl against a backdrop of a harvest moon, is an illustration from our private archive taken from an 1882 advertisement for Ball's corsets.  (No, there is no particular connection between an owl and a corset —but then, nor is there any particular connection between a gecko and insurance.  Advertisements don't always make sense.)  The way the owl in the picture is arranged to seem as though she would like to pounce on the lady's hat always makes me smile: it reminds me of a personal experience.  
     A few years ago Gabriel and I gave a presentation as part of a fundraiser for the West Sound Wildlife Shelter on Bainbridge Island.  The shelter brought a beautiful barred owl named Athena to the fundraiser and we got to spend some time with her before the presentation.  (She'd come to the shelter after being hit by a car.  The accident broke her wing; thanks to the help of the people at the shelter it healed, but  it had been too damaged to allow her to successfully hunt on her own.)  Barred owls' preferred diet includes songbirds, and when we met her Athena thought my feather-covered hat had her lunch on top of it!  She was tethered, so she didn't get a chance to "catch" it, but she expressed a great deal​ of avid interest!

Sarah: "You are SO gorgeous!"
Athena the owl: (Thinking) I could eat that hat.
Sarah: "You are just such a beautiful creature!"
Athena: Seriously, I'm not joking: GIVE ME THE HAT!

Sarah: "So amazing…"
Athena: If you're not going to give me the hat, just go away.  Stupid humans…

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Private individuals, personal use: Include a link to this website <www.ThisVictorianLife.com> when you re-post or share any pictures from our website, and you may do so free of charge.

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Image courtesy http://preraphaelitepaintings.blogspot.com/2010/07/edward-burne-jones-pilgrim-and-heart-of.html

The story "Three Warnings" was written by Lucy B. Hooper and published in Peterson's Magazine in 1890.  I transcribed it from an antique volume in our private archive, and it appears in my anthology 
A Bouquet of Victorian Roses:
19th-century Remarks, Poetry and Short Stories About the Queen of Flowers
​

Read the rest of the story in
A Bouquet of Victorian Roses:
19th-century Remarks, Poetry and Short Stories About the Queen of Flowers

In recognition of October being a time to remember the departed in many cultures, this month's poems are taken from the anthology, 
Words For Parting: Victorian Poetry on Death and Mourning

​The Two Mysteries
 
In the middle of the room in its white coffin lay the dead child, the nephew of the poet.  Near it, in a great chair, sat Walt Whitman, surrounded by little ones, and holding a beautiful little girl in his lap.  She looked wonderingly at the spectacle of death, and then enquiringly into the old man's face.  "You don't know what it is, do you my dear?"  Said he, and added, "We don't, either."
 
We know not what it is, Dear, this sleep so deep and still;
The folded hands, the awful calm, the cheek so pale and chill,
The lids that will not lift again, though we may call and call;
The strange white solitude of peace that settles over all.
 
We know not what it means, dear, this desolate heart-pain,
This dread to take our daily way and walk in it again;
We know not to what other sphere the loved who leave us go,
Nor why we're left to wonder still, nor why we do not know.
 
But this we know, our loved and dead, if they should come this day,
Should come and ask us, "What is life?" Not one of us could say.
Life is a mystery, as deep as ever death can be;
Yet, oh, how dear it is to us, this life we live and see!
 
Then might they say —those vanished ones,— and blessed is the thought,
"So death is sweet to us, beloved! Though we may show you nought;
We may not to the quick reveal the mystery of death--
Ye cannot tell us if ye would the mystery of breath."
 
The child who enters life comes not with knowledge or intent,
So those who enter death must go as little children went.
Nothing is known.  But I believe that God is overhead,
And as life is to the living, so death is to the dead.
 
—Mary Mapes Dodge
What Can A Woman Do? 1883. p. 366—367.

Victorian Mourning Customs

​Words For Parting: Victorian Poetry on Death and Mourning